Monday, April 27, 2009

This Month on My Phone

Since this is the first post of the series, I’ll post older images too.

These pictures were taking using my trusty Nokia 6120c. The camera is pretty bad but it’s enough as long as you don’t need to take night pictures.

The image dimensions here are much smaller than the originals.


חמוצים










^ Pickle leftovers from our base-made pickles.


Donut








^ No one wanted a whole sufganiya. Typical.


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^ Can you guess what that is?


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^ Morning light through the trees.


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^ Some field in Gan Yavne, about 5 minutes from my house.


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^ Different area of that same field, from a different angle.


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^ A tree near a bus stop at 5.40 AM. (hence the semi-sunrise)


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^ Hamstery love in Shiv'ata.


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^ At the train station.


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^ The Star of David roundabout at the entrance of Gan Yavne, today on my way home.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

No Keyboard at Boot (Windows 7 Leftover)

The Windows 7 installation messed up my computer. Aside from the boot-menu issue, my keyboard was suddenly unavailable from the second Windows started booting to the second it finally got loaded. So I couldn’t do a thing once I passed the normal boot and started the HD.

That was a USB keyboard, but I got a new PS/2 one and the computer seems to like it; I can send keyboard events at boot time just like before, even after booting into the HD. Weird.

Edit: I’m pretty sure it messed things up because my computer is REALLY, REALLY OLD and its hardware is terrible. Any computer manufactured in the last 4 years will be better than what I have now. :(

Moving TFS Databases

Recently we had to move a complete Team System Foundation database environment from one storage to another; Not much of a surprise since the databases are growing all the time, and the original hard drive had about 20gb.

So we connected a LUN to the TFS server and I had to move the database files. Here's how you do it:

Before You Start

  • It's highly recommended that you backup all of your databases.
  • The TFS services will not be available (obviously) so you should tell everyone to stop working until you're done even though it won’t hurt the process if they don’t.
  • Names of services and other stuff may appear differently on your machine, so be creative when finding the proper services and application pools.

Step 1: Stopping Services and Application Pools

Go to the Services Console and stop the following services:

  • TFSServerScheduler
  • SharePoint Timer Service
  • SQL Server Reporting services

To get there, open the Run Command window (WinKey-R), type “Services.msc” and hit Enter.

Stop the TFS-related Application Pools:

  • ReportServer
  • TFS AppPool
  • TFSWSS
  • TFSWSSADMIN.

As an alternative to stopping the application pools, you may simply shut down IIS altogether if it isn’t being used for anything else on the system.

To get there, go to Computer Management, then Services and Applications > Internet Information Services > Application Pools.

Step 2: Detaching the Databases

Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and connect to the Database Engine for your Team Foundation Server.

To get there, go to Start > All Programs > Microsoft SQL Server 2005 > SQL Server Management Studio.

Under the Databases node, locate and Detach the TFS databases.

To do this, right-click on the database and select Tasks > Detach. After making sure there are no active connections to the database, click OK to detach it.

This is the common database list needed to be detached. If this SQL Server instance is only used for TFS, just detach everything.

  • ReportServer
  • ReportServerTempDB
  • STS_Config_TFS
  • STS_Content_TFS
  • TfsActivityLogging
  • TfsBuild
  • TfsIntegration
  • TfsVersionControl
  • TFSWarehouse
  • TfsWorkItemTracking
  • TfsWorkItemTrackingAttachements

Step 3: Moving the Databases

Locate the database data files and transaction logs that were detached.

By default they are in the following directory: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data.

Continuing the example database list above, these files are probably the ones we need to move to the new location:

  • ReportServer.mdf and ReportServer_log.LDF
  • ReportServerTempDB.mdf and ReportServerTempDB_log.LDF
  • STS_Config_TFS.mdf and STS_Config_TFS_log.LDF
  • STS_Content_TFS.mdf and STS_Content_TFS_log.LDF
  • TfsActivityLogging.mdf and TfsActivityLogging_log.LDF
  • TfsBuild.mdf and TfsBuild_log.LDF
  • TfsIntegration.mdf and TfsIntegration_log.LDF
  • TfsVersionControl.mdf and TfsVersionControl_log.LDF
  • TFSWarehouse.mdf and TFSWarehouse_log.LDF
  • TfsWorkItemTracking.mdf and TfsWorkItemTracking_log.LDF
  • TfsWorkItemTrackingAttachments.mdf and TfsWorkItemTrackingAttachments_log.LDF

Step 4: Re-Attaching the Databases

Return to Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and reattach the database files in their new locations. How?

  • Right-click on the Databases folder and select Attach.
  • Click the Add button.
  • Browse to the new location and select the first MDF that you’ve moved and click OK.
  • Repeat the last two steps for all of the database files that you moved.
  • Once all of your databases are selected, click OK in the Attach Databases dialog.

Verify that all of the original databases shown in step 5 above are displayed under the Databases folder in SQL Server Management Studio, and close SQL Server Management Studio when you’re done.

Step 5: Restarting Services and Application Pools

Restart the application pools that were shutdown in step 1. Simply go through the same procedure, only start the services instead of stopping them. Restarting the IIS afterwards might be a good idea, too.

To do this, open the Run Command window (WinKey-R), type ‘iisreset’ and hit Enter.

Then start the services that were shut down in the same step.

Success

You’re done. Bring up Team Explorer and verify that everything works. Make sure everything looks good.

It’s also recommended to take a peek at the Application and System event logs and make sure that nothing unusual happened during your testing of the new environment.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Renaming a Post

Since a URL of a post is generated by using the post title, I wanted to see what happens if you change its name. So I renamed the Windows 7 post and went to the same address it had before.
The post's URL didn't change, it stayed the same. No redirection etc, it just changed the title.

So choose your titles carefully, looks like it's permanent.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Guys, come on.


I know that you people, the people who write those tv monstrosities (הישרדות הישראלי in particular) are dumb, but can't you even write proper Hebrew? Guys, come on.

And, for the record, it was my sister who saw this. I never watch this show.

In case the image is missing, it says:
"עידן מדבר על הכל, מיד אחורי הישרדות"

Friday, April 3, 2009

This time, it's not personal

Well, I signed up for Facebook again. And they actually *did* delete my old account so that's good news for those who won't come back.

But this time, I plan to use it just like any other site or IM account: My name and email address is all you're gonna get. I don't have to include my personal life in it too much or use all of its features; Just the IM and statuses.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Going Back to Facebook?

I’ve been toying with the idea to go back to Facebook.

I deleted my Facebook profile a bit more than a month ago, and started using Twitter instead. I can’t say it was a successful transition for me.

Many people said this before, but Facebook became something that everybody knows and takes part of. Most of my friends hold a Facebook profile and got no Twitter login, so that’s a problem. Also, Facebook’s IM is an excellent way to talk to people who are travelling or just don’t use an IM application regularly. You can throw a line on the status input and you get comments from your friends and have a good laugh, or watch as your friend travel the world and taking pictures. It has become such a social place that you’re missing out stuff if you’re not there. It’s like a bad bus company: All people use it to get to places, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to travel. In fact, it blows. (ehm Connex)

Keeping a blog is a different story; Like this post and several others I wrote, a blog is a good place for personal articles about anything and is a good way to keep track of things you’ll want to remember in the future.

I need to think this through, mostly because I quit Facebook saying “Bah, who needs this shit? I quit.” when I should’ve just said “Bah, who needs this shit? I’ll join a group about it and stay.” :) And if I open a new account it’ll be a nice fresh start without all the ‘Wow, this is cool!’ phase people go through in that stupid Facebook.

Edit: Hmm. Looking back at the post I mentioned earlier, it looks weird. I said that I’m quitting Facebook, starting to use Twitter, moving to Linux and opening a blog. If I return to Facebook, it’ll be the third thing in that list for me to undo! Weird.