"SQL Server Setup could not connect to the database service for server
configuration. The error was: [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source
name not found and no default driver specified"

I had this problem and found the solution the other night over on Niko P's blog...

His blog is a great resource for SQL Server 2005 setup issues.

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Friday, March 18th at 10 AM PST

This session focuses on the InfiNotes Note Taking Framework built by Agilix Labs Inc. as an extension to the Tablet PC SDK and Visual Studio .Net Development environment. Agilix InfiNotes is a collection of .NET controls that add rich ink note-taking functionality to new and existing applications. Simply drag the control from the toolbox and begin adding digital ink to your application immediately! You'll be amazed at how quickly you can develop ink note-taking features in your .NET application. InfiNotes Standard Edition is available free from http://www.infinotes.com and should be installed on your development environment along with the Tablet PC SDK, available at http://msdn.microsoft.com/tabletpc. (You do not need a Tablet PC to develop Tablet apps, this can be done right from your existing Windows development environment).

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Boy did we have a blast! Rod  Paddock flew into Boston for Code Camp III where he did 3 back to back sessions on Sunday. He drove back to Vermont with Laura Blood and I. We forgot to pause in NH so he could "touch down" and claim he has been to NH, now. We met up for dinner at my favorite Montepelier restaurant, Sarducci's, with Mario Cardinal and Eric Cote, our GUVSM.NET buddies who were also at Code camp and on their way back to Montreal.

Yesterday Rod treated me to my first Best Buy experience. I have never been there before! Then I toured him around Burlington a bit and off we went to the meeting.

Rod did a talk on creating custom data types for SQL Server 2005 using VS 2005. He is a fantastic presenter.. I could tell that the VTdotNET members were  very interested and engaged because of the many questions. Jean Rene Roy came down from Montreal to pick up Rod since he was heading there next on his world tour. After the meeting Rod, Jean-Rene and Marc Heinzer who is doing awesome work at Gardener's Supply (the largest mail order and online ordering gardening supply company in the country), had a little more geeking out at The Daily Planet and off they went to Montreal.

Rod is speaking tonight at Montreal's Foxpro User Group and then tomorrow night in Toronto at the Toronto VB User Group. He started at home in seattle so he will have a lot of miles under his belt at the end of his mini-world tour.

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Database Production Support Consultant (1 year)

• At least 4-5 years combined using both MSSQL and Oracle RDBMS
• Experience with performance tuning and integrity via indexing, normalization/de-normalization, constraints, triggers, etc.
• Understanding of database security and implementation using views, column level permissioning, and roles.
• Experience with DTS, creation/maintenance of SQL jobs, and security from server to database (including use of NT Authentication as well as standard SQL login/password security)
• Excellent debugging and communication (both written and verbal) skills required
• Excellent organizational skills
• Windows command line scripting and UNIX shell scripting including Awk
• Ability to communicate technical issues in an understandable way to non-technical end users, and keep management informed of the status of issues.
• Database maintenance including backup and recovery, space management, and consistency checks
• Responsibilities to include monitoring existing production processes, identification of performance improvement opportunities in existing processes, completion of audits (daily through monthly), creation/maintenance of desktop procedures/instruction manuals for existing processes, assisting during testing of new processes, and maintenance of data dictionaries

 

Database Consultant (1 year)

• At least 4-5 years combined using both MSSQL and Oracle RDBMS
• Creation and maintenance of large data warehouse databases (up to 1TB)
• Extensive development of stored procedures (containing complex business logic) and views
• Experience with performance tuning and integrity via indexing, normalization/de-normalization, constraints, triggers, etc.
• Understanding of database security and implementation using views, column level permissioning, and roles.
• Excellent debugging and communication (both written and verbal) skills required
• Excellent project management and organizational skills
• Experience creating and updating technical documentation and following development methodology
• Windows command line scripting and UNIX shell scripting including Awk
• Experience acting as a liaison between non-technical business users to create appropriate business requirements
• Data analysis experience helpful
• Database maintenance including backup and recovery, space management, and consistency checks
• Responsibilities to include monitoring existing processes to populate data warehouse, improving performance of existing SQL processes, assisting in the development of new processes for data gathering, completing project documentation, and development and maintenance of data dictionaries

 

For immediate consideration, please contact:

Anne Keehan

Partner

Brandywine Technology Partners

Phone: 302.656.6100 x225

Email: akeehan@btpartners.net

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wowee! what a fun fun weekend. Even with a snowstorm there were a good 300 people at code camp on saturday. More on Sunday. There were even speakers who came from afar - Seattle (Rod Paddock who is speaking at Vermont.NET tonight), Chicago (Raj Das), North Carolina (Rob Zelt and Josh Carlisle), NJ (DonXML).

There were a lot of first time speakers and that went great! Dave Burke gave his presentation on Customizing .Text , which I couldn't attend as I had a talk at the same time, and really enjoyed presenting. Dave got in a very scary accident on his way down and we were all happy to have him there and well.

Sam Gentile had to deal with my low powered laptop to do his .NET 2.0 demos since he had problems with his machine - but at least it worked!

I had fun with my talks. I did the security fundamentals talk again with a look at wse2.0 and love doing that one! I also got to try out two new talks. What's new in ADO.NET 2.0 and  C# for VB programmers. They were both fun.

I know that during the ADO.NET talk, there was something I said, "hmmm - will have to check that out and blog it, but someone has to remind me" - I need the reminder because, as I expected, I don't remember what that was - outside of checking the perf differences between using row add to add many rows to a table or using dataset merge and modify row state - as expected - no difference. I tried it with 400 new rows. So I have to find a better scenario for my demo!

The C#/VB talk was a total blast. Although the sessions were a generous 90 minutes, mine was before lunch. So at the point my talk was supposed to end, everyone just went and grabbed their lunch and came back and we played for another 45 minutes. Even though I don't know the ins and outs of CodeRush too well, I spent about 10 minutes demoing it. I think it is a great tool for people who are used to one language and have to do some coding in the other. We got a little deeper into delegates than I meant to. I believe that delegates are the A#1 biggest hard to grok thing for VB programmers but I have found a way of explaning it that I think works. I think that I will get myself better versed in them and put together a session on delegates and event handling in .NET for VB programmers.

Thom Robbins did an extraordinary job putting this together!

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During my What's New in ADO.NET 2.0 talk at Code Camp the attendees applauded the SqlDependency class.

"Great job" to Leonid Tsybert and everyone on the ADO.NET team!

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holy canoli.

remember when I compared using bulk copy to insert 104,000 records into another database? I compared it to dataadapter update using batch updating with the size set at 100.

The difference in November CTP (VS2005 and SQL Server 2005 full version) was 21 seconds for the bulk copy and 41 minutes for the update.

Out of curiousity, I just ran this again with the Feb CTP versions of vs2005 and sql server 2005.

The bulk copy was about the same. But the update using the same table and the same settings took only 8 minutes!

Wowee kazowee!

update: Pablo Castro recommends: “For maximum perf in batching, make sure you wrap the batched update around a transaction.“

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When I uninstalled the November CTP of SQL Server 2005, I inadvertantly deleted my databases as well. When I installed the Feb bits and looked at the instructions for getting AdventureWorks back in there, I didn't have the right files. So I trolled around the install disk, found the CAB file where the mdf and ldf were, extracted them, trimmed off the extra glob at the end of the files names and then attached. No problem. They are in [DISK]\Setup\Samples.cab.

The files are named AdventureWorks_data.mdf.EE9FA......... and AdventureWorks__Log.ldf.EE9FA.....

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1) SqlDependency is throwing a wierd error just after the notification comes back from the sql server to the client: ObjectDisposedException - no stack trace, not happening within a method. This also effects the Web.Cache.SqlCacheDependency which uses the ado.net class (someone at MS is helping me with this one)

2) iXmlSerializable features of DataTable appear to be broken. I only tried two - passing a datatable from a web service (the webmethod that returns a datatable is getting serialized improperly) and DataTable.Merge (it just adds, does not merge)

3) Bulk Copy is throwing a bizarre error nowhere to be found in google. When I run the WriteToServer method it throws an exception quickly that says "Cannot access destination table 'mytablename'". I can't see in the profiler what's going on. Duh! One second after I posted this I remembered. It's an INSERT! Previously I was deleting all rows from the destination table and then doing the bulk copy. This time I'm using a different table from AdventureWorks. I have to get the empty table in there first.

This is a bummer - 3 2 of my demos for my ado.net 2 talk are dead for now. But I knew what I was in for...

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I am having a blast working on my ADO.NET 2 demos for the ASPConnections talk (and for Code Camp). It is forcing me to think beyond what I did for my MSDN Mag article. For the article, I have about 50 little tests that I ran from a windows form. Here, not only is everything from ASP.NET, but the idea is to show where the benefit is if you are doing asp.net. It's a lot of fun. Also I have done so much Windows Forms lately, I'm happy to be focusing on ASP.NET again.

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uggh - if it weren't for the 200 mile drive I wouldn't be worried about the forecast of snow (heavy at times) all night and tomorrow morning. the plan is to meet up with Laura Blood at 7am or so nearby and then haul a** to Mass. (hey, it rhymes). I was counting on a pedal to the metal 3 hour trip. Good thing my first talk is not till the afternoon. I hate all that time sitting in the car but at least I'll have company this time! Dave Burke, who is presenting on customizing .Text, has a plan that will help him continue preparing while he drives. He's smart - going down today. I still have plenty of prep to do today.

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Brad McCabe sure gets to start his new job as content manager of the Visual Basic Developer Center with a bang! Brad explains what will change as of April 1st and what the effect will be. Similar to what I said here, but with much better detail.

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and I'm sitting here waiting to get control back so I can keep hammering away...tick tick

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Carl Franklin

Kathleen Dollard

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I'm heads down doing my ado.net 2.0 demos. I added a little extra pressure by loading the Feb CTP on my test box yesterday. So much for my demo that returns a DataTable from a Web Service and then does a DataTable.Merge with cached data on a web page. (Hopefully the DataTable's iXMLSerializable functions are only temporarily broken - or maybe I'm just being really dumb. Or maybe Scott Hanselman put a hex on that demo because I was returning a DataTable from a Web Service...how know.)

Luckily Rich is around. He finally walked the dogs, took care of the screaming cat ("where's my dinner?"), is now feeding the dogs and if I'm lucky making dinner, too!

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Just a reminder!

Birds of a Feather sessions are not presentations or panel discussions. There are no speakers and no slides. A microphone and whiteboard will be available, but there will be no projection equipment.

By proposing a session you agree to host it and moderate the discussion at the conference. You do not have to be a subject matter expert in order to host a session. You have to have a genuine interest in the topic. You may propose more than one session, however preference may be given to allow more people the opportunity to lead.

Submit proposals here
Vote here

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Prepare to read this probably on every single blog! It's VERY newsworthy!! They are not really purchasing Ray Ozzie. They will be hiring him as the one of their CTOs.

*thanks for the clarification Mike!

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Microsoft is letting people sign up for their "2nd Shot" program. If you fail a cert test you get a free do-over.

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Can someone explain to me what drove me to uninstall the November VS2005 and SQL Server 2005 bits that were running all of my ADO.NET 2.0 demos perfectly well, and replace them with Feb CTP bits? Two days before I have to do a presentation that requires those demos? I'm not the bungee jumping type...really!

update: just to test my nerves a little, the new sql server bits wouldn't install. Said I didn't have the minimum config. I finally discovered that somehow it forgot about some of it's RAM. I thought maybe the virtual DVD ROM was responsible but even disabling all of the drives didn't help.

Finally I took the box apart and pulled the ram chips out and put them back in and started up. Now I was down to 256. I moved them around and got the beep beep beep (you know - moved them into bad spots) so I put them back in the original positions , restarted and my memory was back and my install went fine.

Over now to my compaq evo laptop which I use to demo whidbey stuff since I have to start updating that now, too. I haven't used it in november. I couldn't remember the password! Finally I got in as admin and changed the user password so that it matches my other computers. Oh lordy lord. What a fun night.

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