Saturday, October 29, 2005

TCP/IP over...

...bongos!

Check out the The Bongo Project. Some college students in Canada found a novel way to transmit data.

Monday, October 24, 2005

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Warren asks...

"Why wouldn't Blogger have blog in its dictionary?"

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Database, Shmatabase

Sometimes, the answer has nothing to do with SharePoint.

I'm doing trial by fire with SharePoint on a project that I inherited. Honestly, it's one of the best ways to learn.

We've been having issues with our WSS test server. It kept showing the following error in the Application Event log:
#50070: Unable to connect to the database CONFIGDB on SQLSERVER. Check the database connection information and make sure that the database server is running.

The site would go down all of the time. It would work, then not work. When it didn't work, it was the generic "Cannot connect to configuration database." We tried all of the fixes suggested online (this, this, this, and others), but nothing worked.

Usually we could connect to the config database using the SharePoint Central Admin, even if the SharePoint site is showing the "Cannot connect to the configuration database" error. Sometimes the Central Admin couldn't find the config database, but usually it worked. Very strange.

We tried changing the domain accounts used, creating new config and content databases and restoring the content, restarting a million times, etc. Nothing fixed it for good.

So, I tried an old trick: Switch the authentication to SQL Authentication. VoilĂ ! It appears that our Active Directory and/or SQL Server connection is flaky. So, this time SharePoint wins.

Win a prize

Whomever gets the reference to the new blog name gets a shiny nickel for the nickelodeon.

Friday, October 07, 2005

It's Alive

In case you're wondering, I am still alive and kicking. I've had a few busy months at work, requiring more of a management focus than a technical edge. I'm getting back into more technical aspects now, finally hopping on to a SharePoint project! (Hallelujah!)

After attending the MVP Summit last week, I was reminded how much I love tinkering in technology. Thanks to the other MCMS MVPs Andrew, Angus, and Spence for helping to ignite my fire.

In other news, Ann-Marie and I are expecting a baby in April!