ATI Radeon 7500 and Dell 2405 LCD

Reformatting a Windows installation every 6-12 months should be commonplace among Windows users. From newbies to seasoned professionals, every Windows installation should be re-imaged, re-installed, or re-formatted.

I don't know what it is about Windows - and it's not isolated to any specific version - but, your system slows down the more you use it, the more you install on it. That's why I recommend reinstalling Windows on it every 6-12 months. It gets rid of all the crap you've built up on your machine.

Every piece of software writes something to your hard drive and there is always a chance that something gets left behind if you uninstall it. I kind of miss the days when all the necessary files were in a single directory - no registry, no SYSTEM32 folder. Just a directory in \Program Files and thats it. If you ever find the need to get rid of the program, just delete the directory and voila.

I spoke too soon. I had it working for a while, then uninstalled Powerstrip. Back to square 1. Ignore the following paragraphs.

So upon following my own advice I had wiped out my trusty Dell Inspiron 4150 P4 1.6ghz laptop. Copying important files was easy since I have accustomed myself to storing everything in the "C:\Active Backup" folder technique. Everything of importance goes in there - Outlook .PST file, camera .JPEGs, .WAV and .MP3 files - you name it.

The one thing I completely forgot about were my video card drivers for the integrated ATI Radeon 7500 in the laptop and/or the docking station (I used the trick of flashing the Inspiron BIOS to the Latitude BIOS to get the docking station to work).

You might be saying, "Just visit the Dell support site for the video card drivers". True in most cases that may work, but I have a fantastic Dell 2405FPW LCD 24" monitor. And, I am one of those few individuals who want to preserve their eyesight so I don't set the maxium resolution to 1900x1200. I find the most comfortable to be 1280x768. Very comfortable to view, and the aspect ratio of icons and text seems to be perfect.

But none of the Dell ATI drivers support this resolution. And to top things off, the readily available ATI Catalyst drivers are useless for integrated graphics cards. I managed to find another set of drivers for ATI cards called "Omega Drivers" . But alas, there were dozens of different versions. The most recent causes BSOD gpfs. The oldest caused the screen to display black bars on the top and bottom, or left and right. It was not until I found a specific version - 2.6.53 that did the trick.

So for all of you who have a similar setup to me (very unlikely, but nonetheless) this has made my day.

1. Uninstall your Dell ATI drivers
2. Get the Omega v2.6.53 drivers from : Driver Heaven .Net
3. Install them and reboot

As a special note, PowerStrip may have played a small part in producing this custom resolution but I have yet to figure out for sure.

I am no longer a concert virgin!

Music is a big part of my life. I simply love it. My collection of music varies greatly. If you look on my shelf you'll find Shania Twain next to Ludacris, Gretchen Wilson next to Andrea Bocelli, Sheryl Crow next to Frank Sinatra. I go through moods in music where I will listen to a different genre for months at a time. Some music doesn't get played for 1-2 yrs in some cases.

It comes as a surprise to other people who are fans of music that I have never been to a concert. Rolling Stones last gig in Toronto at Downsview Park? Nope. Frank Sinatra before he passed away? Nope. Duran Duran before punk hit the crapper? Nope.


The topic of concerts came up one day with a good friend of mine a couple of years ago. I thought for a moment and came to the conclusion that if I were to see a concert, there were only 2 groups/performers I would see (which she also agreed) - Gypsy Kings and Sheryl Crow. That says a lot. I don't want to get high at a rocker concert, and some of the classics like Sinatra are best listened to over a glass of red wine. But Sheryl Crow and The Gypsy Kings are different. I could imagine sitting at their concerts and truly enjoying the "live" experience.

So the opportunity came upon me - sort of like a freak accident meant to be. Sheryl Crow announced a concert date at Casino-Rama, Ontario, Canada in July of 2006. At the same time, the same friend I originally had the conversation about concerts with was having a 30th birthday. Lightbulbs went off in my head. What a perfect gift! For her and me! I was about to lose my concert virginity!

To those who have never seen a concert or event at Casino-Rama, let me tell you this ... it is big. I wouldn't say the acoustics there are fabulous, but good enough to make the experience worthwhile. All in all the concert was enjoyable. Sheryl was an act that I truly enjoyed watching and hearing. Although for some reason I expected it to be longer than it was. And I sure wish the light-show wasn't so annoyingly bright so that I could take a picture of Sheryl on stage with my cameraphone that I had sneaked in (it was in my pocket). Besides, the Maytags in front of us were difficult to focus with.

I hope Sheryl had a good time in Toronto.

Head Lube

I'm in Shoppers Drug Mart the other day for something that I just can't remember ... it always seems that I originally intend to purchase 3-4 items but end up leaving with only 1, not realizing until I'm home that I missed the other items.

I'm browsing through the the men's grooming section ... which by the way isn't with the rest of the guys stuff. Why is that? Intentional? I have to browse through the entire store trying to find the item I need. Ever notice how many different brands of women's hygiene products there are? And how many frikken variations of Tylenol are out there? One for the morning, one for night, one for colds, one for flu, etc.

So I'm over at the shaving cream section, and what catches my eye but a bright yellow bottle with the words "HEAD LUBE" on it. My mind starts to wander, "why isn't this in the section with the condoms and KY gelly?". Gee, catchy name. Upon further inspection I find out that it's for guys who shave their heads. Fancy that, a shaving cream for balding men.

Yes, that's right. I said it. I can't see anybody shaving their head for a reason other than the fact that they have little or no hair, and want to hide the receding hairline. I've been a little envious that I can't look like Vin Diesel or Howie Mandel, but I've been blessed with a full head of hair like a mop. Granted, that hair has it's price, I have the head the size of a watermelon.

The next time you're in a Shoppers Drug Mart, just peruse the aisles to find out what kind of products are out there. You'll find some strange items, and perhaps you'll notice the personal massager on the top shelf above the condoms.

The new Toyota Rav4

What the hell was Toyota smoking when they came up with this one? I've always hated the design of the tailgage and spare tire of the Toyota Rav4. They've just carried over the last generation Rav4 design over to the new generation. They insist on wrapping the spare tire in a fibreglass casing and warp the rear hatch at the same time.

Honestly, the new Rav4 has a very interesting new shape to it. The stance is wider, it seems a little less "gimpy" and has a overall appeal to it ... that is, until you see the rear hatch. They've decided to incorporate the spare tire into the body at the same time obstructing the rear view by as much as 1/3 the height of the rear window. Not to mention lowering the bumper to accomodate the tire.

I've never been a fan of externally visible spare tires on street-inspired SUVs. It looks natural on the Jeep Wrangler/TJ/YJ series, and somewhat acceptable on the Jeep Liberty line. On the Suzuki Sidekick it was necessary because there wasn't a whole lot of room elsewhere. And it just suited the old Ford Bronco original line of SUVs (why do I always associate Chuck Norris with a Bronco ?).

I think Toyota would have been much better off placing the spare tire inside the truck buried under the rear cargo space. Well, the typical Rav4 owner would have no clue what to do if it was buried under the truck externally visible like the Jeep Cherokee or Chevrolet trucks.

Maybe then the design team for the Rav4 could have carried over the design cues to the rear of the truck. And maybe if I was lucky, they'd change the hinge location while they're at it.

X-shaped Rubber Bands

I guess these may have been more of a hit back in the days of the floppy diskettes. X-shaped rubber bands can be purchased at :
X-shaped rubber bands

Ah, the good 'ol days of the floppy drive and diskette. 720k, 1.44mb, 2.8mb. And if you were dedicated enough you would have bought one of those little contraptions that positioned the 1-sided diskette upside down so you could drill a hole in the casing and make 1.44mb diskettes for the price of 720kb !

I wonder where that little metal contraption went?

Sony Ericsson W810i

About 1 month ago my Nokia 6310 cellular phone started giving me problems. Perhaps it had enough of being accidentally dropped. One thing I have to admit is that it served me well for about 2.5 years. It wasn't the most technologically advanced, it didn't have all the fancy features, but it was a solid phone. It did indeed have perfect reception.

But after the keys started giving me problems I decided it was time to get a new phone. I was never really a fan of flip-phones like the LG and Samsungs that everybody was sporting, and I wasn't too keen on a tiny phone. But somehow the mp3 features of the Sony Ericsson W810i seemed to scream my name since I was in the market for an mp3 player while rollerblading and biking. The convenience of having a cell phone and mp3 rolled into 1 was a big selling feature.

Granted I've been a Nokia-fan for a long time. Something about their simple menu feature and readability of the LCD screen in daytime light kept me with a Nokia phone through several generations. That's where my first problem comes into play when I started using the Sony. Nothing about the menu structure is simple, especially the added movement of left-right navigation with the "joystick" which complicated things tremendously.

Second were the size of the keys on the keypad. I was able to dial the Nokia phones with ease not looking at the keypad at all. The keys were spaced enough apart and big enough to find with my thumb. The little notch on the 5, and a simple up-down/left approach to finding the remaining keys made it simple and quick to dial. With the Sony the level-variation betweeen the keys while tracking your finger across 2 keys is negligible - not enough of a difference to distinguish when a new key is being pressed.

Third, the tiny little hole where you put your ear. At certain positions the caller is barely heard. You have to play around with the phone to find the optimal position it must sit placed next to your ear. The phone might have benefitted if more holes for listening were placed at the top of the phone.

Fourth, the volume switch on the side of the phone is just too small. Seeing as Sony had the whole side of the phone to work with (they had about 1.5 inches of empty space before you reach the camera button) they could have at least made the buttons for volume-up and volume-down bigger. Now during a call, I have to physically look at the phone and press the volume with the tip of my finger to adjust the levels. With the Nokia I could easily increase the volume without moving the phone from my ear.

There are many, many more minor annoyances I have with this phone such as :

• call list displays all received, missed, dialed calls (instead of the default - missed calls)
• the screen is not easily visible in the daytime
• where is a normal phone ringtone?
• dinky cable connections (prone to possible breaking)

And on the plus side I can say quite a few good things about it :

• attractive black design
• good call quality (that may be my local provider, Rogers)
• easily expandable ... comes with 512mb of memory
• great walkman mp3 feature
• fm transmitter add-on seems very promising

Thank you Oilers for a truly exciting Stanley Cup!

Thank you Edmonton Oilers for a truly exciting Stanley Cup playoff run. I have never had so much jaw-breaking, edge-of-my-seat, on-my-toes excitement in any Stanley cup I watched. Every minute of every game was worth watching, both wins and losses.

Although I don't think you "got your groove" until the 3rd period of game #7, and personally I think MacTavish pulled Jussi Markkanen just a touch too early. I still think that if you were given an extra 45 seconds you quite possibly could have tied up the game.

Special mention should go out to Jussi Markkanen for picking up where Dwayne Roloson had left off during his accident before being forced out with an injury.

But one thing bothers me. Perhaps because Edmonton was my favourite, but I strongly believe that the Edmonton players "wanted" the Stanley Cup more than the Hurricanes.

Mr. Sub and their Louisiana Chicken Wrap

I haven't been a fan of the Mr. Sub franchise as of late. There "was" a time when I enjoyed the foot-long ham subs with lots and lots of their famous dressing, but all that has changed. This was during a time when there was no direct competition to them - perhaps during the 1980s until the mid 1990s. Mr. Sub was the only thing around, and it was damn good.

Then franchises started popping up all over the place and they started skimping on toppings and quality. And what finally made the decision for me was consistently being stuck with stale bread. It's one thing to get home and say, "this bread is stale", it was another to see the bread crumble right before your eyes when it was being cut down the middle in the shop. I vowed never to go back again.

Then along came the wraps, in particular the spinach wrap. A much longer shelf life, and "ideally" a more healthier alternative. But that didn't last too long as everybody became stingy with the toppings on wraps. One thinly-sliced tomato on a wrap? Haha. One piece of thinly sliced chees? Haha again.

This afternoon I visited the Mr. Sub franchise in Hillcrest Mall and the Louisiana Chicken wrap "looked" interesting. It's funny how the mind can put together a delightful imaginary picture with a simple 3-word sandwich. The chicken bits were abundant but very poor quality chicken ... which makes you wonder how many different animal means "taste like chicken" ... hmmmmmm. And the Louisiana sauce was pretty pathetic.

Then came the queasiness and discomfort the rest of the afternoon. No more Mr. Sub for me. I still enjoy the subs at Subway a lot more. And for me and I'm sure many other folks, the cost of a sub is not going to deter me from getting a higher quality, better tasting sandwich elsewhere.

Fernando Pisani helps Oilers hold on to thread

Fernando Pisani prevented the Oilers from being ousted in the 2006 Stanley Cup Playoffs in game 5 with an overtime goal, and short-handed at that! With their season falling before their eyes the Edmonton Oilers hung on to force game #6 in the 2006 finals between the Hurricanes and Oilers.

Game #6 kept me on the edge the entire time. I was originally hoping for a final match between two Canadian teams but Calgary and Ottawa were disappointingly eliminated fairly early in the finals.


Edmonton has kept me guessing throughout the entire series. When all of their steam seems to run out, they always show me a final trick that keeps me on edge. On an unfair tripping call against Steve Staios (Macedonian or Greek? what are you Steve?) the Hurricanes had a 1-man advantage in overtime. But keeping up with the younger Oilers was getting much more difficult for the Canes who seemed to have run out of energy. Both teams were tired when final minutes of the 3rd period wound down - for Carolina who seemed to show a sudden last burst of energy, and for Edmonton who had to defend against it with an overtired line.

But alas the younger Oilers seemed to rejuvenate themselves over the break - or perhaps it was an inspirational talk by Craig MacTavish?

Way to go Oilers !

Edmonton Oilers powerplay

Up until game #5 with the Carolina Hurricanes has left me wondering, what the hell is Craig MacTavish thinking about the Oilers powerplay line? What stands out in my mind was a mind-boggling performance in game #4 where the Oilers had 3 powerplay opportunities in a row, the 3rd being a 2-man advantage.

Why aren't there any Oilers standing in front of the net blocking the goalie and to pick up any rebounds? And how come the Oilers don't have any hard shooters? I remember the days of the Leafs with Eddie Olcyzk and his killer slapshot - to the point of earning the title of fastest slapshot in the league. To me it doesn't seem like the Oilers have any juice for point shots.


Which brings me to the next point : why not go for rebounds when you don't have a solid shooter? Block the goalie and pick up a rebound. Too many of the Oilers are out in the outskirts of the zone. Don't pass, shoot shoot shoot ! Then pick up the spoils.

And it seems like too many Oilers are right-handed shooters forcing a quick turn to get a decent shot. But I guess that is not easily fixed.

All in all I think Edmonton has a strong team this year and for the next 2-3. And I think Markkanen is doing a bang-up good job at goaltending.

Paint Shop Pro 5.0

I wipe out my main system every 6 months or so ... to clean any viruses, slowdowns, or bad installs. It's a habit I have and it keeps my system running in tip-top order. So I rummaged through some of my archive DVDs of software I bought trying re-install all my old programs.

I came across Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 5.0. What a cool little paint program. This was one of my initial purchases and it has more than paid for itself over and over. I haven't found much of a reason to upgrade to newer versions, as with all the new features come the more complicated menus, slower load times, and just plain annoyances. I know my PSP 5 and I'll stick with it thank you, unless Corel (the new owners) decide to go back to the grass-roots of PSP.

Regardless, now that they have gone through 3 more versions they seem to assume there is no more reason to support the old 5.0 version. And I know there was a 3rd and final patch which fixed some bugs and updated some features.

Anyways, since I could not easily find it on the web I am providing a download link to the update (not the actual program!) for those who find this piece of software to still be useful.

Here is the link psp503up.exe

Enjoy! Hopefully Corel doesn't crap on me for doing this.

Replacing the LCD hinges of a Dell Inspiron 4150

My trusted workhouse, the Dell Inspiron 4150 laptop that I bought about 4 years ago had its right LCD hinge broken. Granted 3 years was beyond the useful life expectancy of a laptop (in my opinion) , which is basically when my factory extended warranty ran out. So everything after I considered "gravy". The laptop did its job and did its job well.

So, about 2 months ago the right-hinge broke (the side with the double-leg hinge, opposite the side with the LCD ribbon cable). Now, where do I find somebody to fix it? I was pretty handy and so I decided to search on the Internet for a company to sell me the replacement part.

Most people are under the understanding that at the end of the rainbow is a pot of gold ... in my experiences, eBay is at the end of my rainbow. If you're looking for some obscure object or part, somebody is bound to have sold it or currently selling it on eBay.

Most objects can be had for a bargain on eBay, but there are a group of people ("group" is used loosely) who insist on selling the item for a bargain-basement price, but charge something ridiculously high for shipping & handling. Hence was my case when I needed an LCD hinge for a Dell Inspiron 4150. Most of the sellers were asking $9.99 for a single buy-it-now price but wanted something in the range of $40USD for shipping. I tend to avoid those people at all cost.

Regardless, I found somebody who would ship the replacement part at a reasonable cost for shipping and the part itself. Although the seller indicated the hinge was sold loose (in my opinion, means sold without the LCD panel) it was actually in a condition where it would not hold the LCD panel up.

Dell Poweredge SC420 XP video card drivers

I'm a Dell nut. I admit it. I've had nothing but horseshoes with Dell machines.

I bought a used Dell Poweredge 2300 with dual P2-300 cpus. It was noisy but it was dual CPU system. It also produced a lot of heat, but that warmed up my basement during the winter months.

I bought my next brand new Inspiron 4150 laptop with the works. I loved that laptop. It has a P4 1.6ghz cpu with 512mb memory and a 30gb hard drive. I am still using it today, aside from a temporary setback of broken LCD hinges which forces me to use a docking station and an external monitor (more on that in another post).

Then came the Dimension 2400, the Poweredge 1550, the set of Poweredge 750s and the Dell Poweredge SC420. My reason for buying Dells? They are cheap and I haven't had a problem with one since that first dual cpu system (granted, the laptop had its fair share of problems but due to its age and the wear and tear that it endured).

Regardless I love my Dells even despite their quirks, and trust me every Dell has a quirk. My Poweredge SC420 I picked up for $499 ($575 w/tax) and is my fastest system. A Pentium 4 3.4ghz initially with 128mb of DDR2 ECC memory.

It's first quirk was the requirement to run DDR2 ECC memory. I don't know why I didn't pay attention when I bought it, but ECC memory was expensive and hard to find, not to mention the fact that it was ECC DDR2 ! I did some digging and it turns out that non-ECC DDR2 worked fine so I ordered 2gb worth on eBay for a decent price. Everything works fine.

Remember, this system was labelled as a "server" and was intended to be used as such. This was my second mistake. There were no drivers for the onboard Intel graphic card. Most of you are probably thinking, well you should be using AGP or PCIe anyways. Granted, for all you gaming deadheads who buy $1500+ systems to play games when you should've bought a Sony Playstation/Microsoft XBox ! This system was to be my primary system ... audio, video and development so I needed XP drivers. Unfortunately there were none. Only for Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.

I won't go into the lengthy discussion of "hacking" the crippled PCIe slot and what some people on the Internet have risked to achive this hack.

So after some digging I ran across a website called PowerEdge Forums which had an active discussion on the Windows XP video drivers issue. Essentially, the solution was to install a software patch to fool Windows into thinking the onboard graphics chip was actually another almost identical Intel chip with Windows XP drivers. Then, install the drivers for that card and off you go! The tip actually worked and I've been using it since, but after a recent re-install of Windows XP I could no longer find an active link to the drivers and patch.

So, here you go:

1. Unzip and right-click the ".inf" file and select install for the software patch : SoftGMA005.zip

2. Reboot the system (if it hasn't asked you already)

3. Install these Windows XP drivers from another Intel video card that actually works in XP : win2k_xp1416.exe

Enjoy!

I love Snapstream BeyondTV

I was wandering the software aisle of Best Buy just before my trip to Vail, Colorado. I came across a piece of software called BeyondTV by a company called Snapstream. I had years before purchased a Hauppauge tv tuner card, then later a Hauppauge tv tuner with FM radio, and then later an MSI TV @nywhere. I thought the whole concept of recording tv was a cool idea.

Nothing ever really became of those hardware purchases. The software for the Hauppauge cards were unexciting and just plain "blah". The MSI card was a bit better as it came with some scheduling software but somehow never got used much (besides the fact that the box advertised MPEG4 encoding but it never did...). It too turned out to be a dud because of the bundled software. And because I was never a Linux nut I never tried any of the UNIX tv pacakges available.


So anyways, I installed the Snapstream software and to my amazement this was one piece of slick software! The software was truly marvelous. The user-interface was easy and simple to work with. I started out with a 40gb hard drive. Then it moved to an 80gb. Now I've got a 250gb hard drive in the machine, and am thinking of putting in another 250gb because I only have 10hrs of space left.

Let me first explain. Beyond TV is a software package than when coupled with a compatible tv tuner card on your PC will allow you to record tv programs from your tv cable without any intervention. Do you want to catch every episdoe of Lost, House or Reba without having to stay at home? This can do it. Set it up to record a single episode or every single episode that airs from today forward? This can do it.

This essentially bundles the features of a TIVO (which isn't available in Canada) and a Rogers PVR (the local cable company offering) but without the rental fee. Sure it might be overkill, but I've got extra PCs lying around with all these tv tuner cards. Great!

Now, all I need to do is find time to watch all these recorded shows.

The Summer of George

It's funny how ahead of its time the show was, Seinfeld was really an impressionable tv show. Too many times in life have I thought that my life runs a course too parallel to the episodes of Seinfeld.

Over the last week with the warm summer-like weather gripping the Ontario, Canada region never have I felt so thrilled and eager to enjoy summer. Partly because my winter was so dismal (I wish it would snow 365 days a year - because I love skiing). I began to start thinking that great things were to happen to me this summer - the summer of George - well, the summer of Ted.

Although the similarities end there - I am not short, stalky or balding. And I'm kinda iffy-iffy on the whole velour concept.

eBay is an addiction

eBay is an addiction. I'm sure that I'm not the only one that can admit to that fact. There are just too many nostalgic items on eBay too easy to get a hold of. I started out small, but now I'm practically buying at least 1 item every week.

I grew up watching my father tap his fingers and hands on the steering wheel of his 1975 Cadillac Coupe de Ville. It was a brown-bronze colour. Don't ask me why he picked that colour, I just accepted it. We were always out with the family on a Sunday (back in the good old days when stores when everything was closed on Sundays except for churches and the Ali Baba buffet breakfast in Brampton). Anyways, my father would tap his fingers and hands on his steering wheel to the beat of the Macedonian songs ... and sometimes Croatian and Serbian.

He also had a record player in the house that he would always play Macedonian 33rpm LP records on. I guess that is where I got keen on music. Back to the topic.

So, I started perusing the eBay listings for among other things, Macedonian 33rpm LPs. The first LP i ever bought was Angelo's Florineon Band. I had a copy but it was in such poor shape it was just slightly enjoyable. I found not one, but two sealed originals! What were the chances? I was in heaven. My favourite record sealed and ready for me to play!

Anyways, I started to purchase Macedonian records on a regular basis and it's become quite the hobby. CDs are nice for new music, but nothing beats the memories that playing a scratchy / skippy 33rpm record gives me of driving to Ali Baba to buffet breakfast with my family.

Use CSS in favour of tables? Maybe.

I've been building a couple of websites lately, including this one and I've always used tables for the layout and positioning. I've been using it since the good 'ol days and have been completely happy with it. Now the move is towards table-less designs and CSS boxes.

Let me first give a piece of advice to those thinking of making the switch. Don't! Let me explain why. I have to admit that the whole concept of CSS is a fabulous idea and I am all in favour of using it 100%, but at the present time there are just too many damn hacks to get versions of your CSS to work with IE, Safari, Firefox, Netscape, etc.

I'm an IE user not because it is better than anything out there, just because it works for me. I've found Firefox and Netscape just a little un-refined for my tastes (granted, Netscape is great for testing with it's dual IE and Firefox engine).



So my development goes along until I get a fairly stable site when I decide to test in Netscape. That's where the headaches start. Nothing looks write. After countless of modifications I could never get it to look like my original IE design, and then it's too late because I've made so many changes and modifications that nothing looks the same.

At this point you figure somebody else has had similar problems so you do a search on the Net. Guess what? People have all these fixes and hacks for different versions, you give it a shot. Nothing works 100%.

What is the point of using an IE hack to get it to work with Internet Explorer? Just stick to a mix of tables for your top-level site layout, then use CSS boxes for the sections. All fine and dandy.

Until Microsoft actually adheres to the CSS standards will I forever banish the table tag to the garbage.

Winter is officially over!

Winter is officially over! No, they haven't changed the official first day of spring. Today is the first day where I have completely given up hope of any winter snow to grace the ground I walk upon.

I have officially given up on winter and am anxiously waiting for summer to approach. With the unusual warm spell falling upon the Ontario region the past 2 weeks, I've packed away my long underwear, thermal undershirts, skis, boots, ski jacket and scarf.

Now the rollerblades get dusted and tuned. I await the street sweepers to rid the roads of dust and dirt, pebbles and rocks.

I feel cheated. Perhaps a career change that would take me to Whistler next season?

My needle in an evergrowing haystack

This is simply my needle in an evergrowing haystack called the Internet. My chance to document whatever is going on in my head.

Over the years I've been presented with too many scenarios which involved me searching the Internet for some obscure piece of information. This is my chance to document such a finding in order to save some time for the next poor soul who encounters a similar problem.

Paging in Microsoft SQL Server

Every SQL Server and/or VB developer will come across the need to return data from a database. There will come a time when that database grows to a size when returning the entire list of records is not feasible.

I initially encountered the problem when widespread use of the Internet involved using a 28.8k or 56k modem to connect to the Internet. Most users were not specifying a filter and therefore returning the entire list of records. I had to think of a fix.


Next course of action, search the Internet. Plenty of articles about paging using the recordset's AbsolutePage property. After all the coding and testing internally it seemed to have worked. Now was the time to test it over the modem. No luck. It seems that paging only works when building recordset on a single table. My application was using a stored procedure to join about 8 tables. It took me a while to find that out with some write-and-test code sessions.

Then I got an idea. I could manually have the database do the work, but only request the specified pages I needed. It was fairly simple too. I simply allowed the user to submit their query, and instead of returning the records I would return the recordcount.

The first stored procedure would create a temporary table with an IDENTITY column, and a key column which linked the data. Then, if I requested page #1 (and if i specified each page was 50 records) i would simply write a query which filtered IDENTITY >=1 and IDENTITY <=50.

This would then be joined to the original query, but would only return the 50 records requested. The datagrid displaying the rows would get populated with the first page. In code if I detected the user going past that first page, the application would fetch the second page of data and fill the grid. Eventually, the user would scroll down to the bottom - at which point the entire grid was populated and no need for trips to the database.

Although this solution has its drawbacks. You have to create a global temporary table that each user accesses, and they won't be able to open multiple versions of the application (different filter, same table, screwy results). Then you have to worry about deleting the tables when they log out.

I only recently saw a second solution that was implemented by a colleage of mine in a financial application. It was a very complicated version of what I am going to show you now.

select * from (
select top @records_per_page * from (
select top @records_per_page * @page_number * from vwRECORDS
order by date_posted desc) as foo
order by date_posted asc) as bar
order by date_posted desc

If you follow the example on a dataset of 10 records and a pagesize=2 you can very easily follow what it is doing.

Ingenious isn't it? I'm sure this can be adopted to any product that has a similar convention to the "top" keyword as Microsoft SQL Server has.

Long input into a TEXTAREA control hangs a form submit

Here's a very simple technique when using forms to submit data to another page. Well, it's not really a technique because it's really the proper way of doing it.

If you've ever created a web form that submits large amounts of data to another page, you may click until you're blue in the face and the submit button will not do anything. Well, there's a reason for that:

In the form tag specify method="post"

That's it!

I hate global warming

It's nearing the end of January and being one of the coldest months in Ontario (the other being February, not too far off) you would never know it if you stepped outside. We had a couple of freak snowstorms in December which put a nice ring on the Christmas holidays, but January has been dismal. I can probably count the number of days it's snowed on my left hand.

Granted, most of you are probably not complaining as I write this. I grew up waiting for winter and then summer. I've never liked spring or fall. Too wet and too blah. Rollerblading in the summer and skiing in the winter, that was the life for me.

Often I came across the dumbfounded look on people's faces when I told them I was looking forward to winter. My screensaver is a snow-covered forest along the slopes of the Rocky Mountains, while the rest of the office has white sand beaches and clear blue warm oceans.

Granted I wasn't selfish, I was happy with the three months of pure excitement that mother nature bestowes upon us ... January, February, and March. Three out of the twelve months isn't asking for much is it? Besides, if you wanted sun all year round then Florida is where you should be. And I wasn't afraid to tell somebody that.

But what's happening lately? Western Canada is experiencing some unusually high temperatures for this time of year. In fact the Grouse Mountain ski resort located just outside of Vancouver, British Columbia opened their ski and snowboard operations early. The 2005/2006 ski season looked promising. Many of the Rocky Mountain resorts were getting record snowfalls in October.

But it would not last long because Mother Nature playing a cruel joke on us and tempting us with just enough snowfall to force us to wax our skis and snowboards early in anticipation for the upcoming season. Then in the words of Emeril, BANG! she melted our hopes away.

Grouse Mountain had to close because the weather was too warm even with a snowmaking operation. Plenty of Canadian resorts went on a semi-alert status with the warmer weather because of avalanche concerns.

At Ski Fernie in British Columbia, on an actual groomed run, a slab of snow (ok, not quite an avalanche movie-style) broke off and partially buried nine skiers (including a ski patroller).

CTV News - Avalanche almost buries skiiers in Rockies

This ski season is unbelievable! A record number of Colorado ski resorts were opening early, in fact before Halloween! Most have had record snowfalls within the last 2 months.

Here in Ontario, we've got a lot of rain and warm temperatures in the low-digits. As I look outside I see not a piece of snow in sight.

Global warming is all good when we get warmer summers, but when it impacts my snow season ... well, that's just not right. I used to ask for at least 3 good months of snow to ski and snowboard. Looks like we'll barely get 1-2 months this year.

I just hope all those ski resorts also operate golf courses so they can capitalize on the loss of their winter bread-and-butter. You suppose they can build a hole on every run? I wonder if uphill or downhill golfing would be easier?