Happy New Year!
9:14pm, December 31st, 2006
end of 2006
First of all, Wish you Happy New Year!
After long time, had a chance to do a Microsoft exam again (got a free voucher :) ), yes it is Technolodgy Specialist: Microsoft SQL Server 2005—Implementation and Maintenance (70-431). I had no time to study but was abale to find the correct answer since most of the questions were related to the job I do. Some of the questions were little bit difficult to me (like questions related to Mirroring..) because of no experience on those subjects. but I was lucky enough to got through.
Now Im thinking of doing Technolodgy Specialist: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Business Intelligence - Implementation and Maintenance (70-445), even though I have not touched BI related stuff for long time. That's one of my 2007 plans anyway.
9:11pm, December 31st, 2006
2007 Sri Lankan Holidays for Outlook
There are few housekeeping stuff that you need to do at the start of the year and adding the Sri Lankan holidays to your Outlook calendar is one.
– – – – – – – – – Start Copy – – – – – – – – –
[Sri Lanka] 26
Duruthu Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/1/3
Tamil Thai Pongal Day (BPM),2007/1/15
Navam Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/2/1
National Day (BPM),2007/2/4
Mahasivarathri Day (BP),2007/2/16
Medin Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/3/3
Milad-Un-Nabi (Holy Prophet’s Birthday) (BPM),2007/4/1
Bak Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/4/2
Good Friday (BP),2007/4/6
Day Prior to Sinhala & Tamil New Year Day (BPM),2007/4/13
Sinhala & Tamil New Year Day (BPM),2007/4/14
May Day (BPM),2007/5/1
Vesak Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/5/1
Day following Vesak Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/5/2
Adhi Poson Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/5/31
Poson Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/6/30
Esala Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/7/29
Nikini Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/8/28
Binara Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/9/26
Id-Ul-Fitr (Ramazan Festival Day) (BP),2007/10/13
Vap Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/10/25
Deepavali Festival Day (BP),2007/11/8
Il Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/11/24
Id-Ul-Alha (Hadji Festival Day) (BP),2007/12/21
Unduvap Full Moon Poya Day (BPM),2007/12/23
Christmas Day (BPM),2007/12/25
– – – – – – End Copy – – – – – – –
Follow the steps that I’ve outlined in my last years post ‘Add Sri Lankan holidays to your Outlook calendar’. The same steps work on Outlook 2007 as well.
I’ve updated this year’s list to include whether each holiday is a B. P. or M.
Note that if you have last year’s list under Sri Lanka you will need to replace it with this year’s ones. I can’t quite imagine why this thing is not easier.
[UPDATE: The box parenthises were causing problems. I've changed them now. Thanks Sandarenu.]
8:54pm, December 31st, 2006
Counting my blessings
Happy New Year everybody!
Looking back, 2006 for me has been a very special year and one that I'm thanking God for blessing me so wonderfully.
I got married to the love of my life, nearly ten years after we fell madly in love with each other. I switched jobs to go back to my old company where I absolutely love coming to work in the mornings and I finally bought my very own house.
To top off everything, the Lord blessed us with our wonderful son Joshua!
7:37pm, December 31st, 2006
Looking Back @ 2006
another year gone..v r on the verge of a new year…
year 2006 was a remarkable year for me…
there were soo many things that i got n didnt get…but soo many things i got where more than i expected…yea..there were few draw backs too…
if i get in to detail it at least take 10 to 20 pgs…
mainly i became a MCP,MCTS(SQL Server)…
and 1 more exam i will be a MCSA..
next year is going to be a very challenging year for me..
A/L are coming up…exactly 140 days…
Looking forward to embrace Year 2007
Wish u all a Very Happy New Year…full of Success and Happiness!!!
9:45am, December 31st, 2006
TypeForwardedToAttributes
While preparing for the 70–551 exam I came across the new TypeForwardedToAttributes class. Searching for this on MSDN brought up “no search results”. Hmm.. that sounded funny.
Searching on Live did bring up some results. The problem stems from the fact that the actual class name is TypeForwardedToAttribute not TypeForwardedToAttributes as incorecctly stated in the exam preparation guide page.
A handy feature too which allows you to move classes from one assembly to another without breaking existing applications that have the earlier reference. Bill Bozeman’s blog has a good overview on the TypeForwardedToAttributes class with examples.
8:55pm, December 29th, 2006
Passing 10,000 mark
Just noticed something. This blog has had over 10,000 visitors. That is so cool! Good to see that there are people who would actually read what I write!
12:46pm, December 28th, 2006
December 2006 update
I just notices that i have not made a posting since 1st of December. Well you can’t really blame me as this was one of the most hectic months of my life.
First, the baby kept me busy. She immediately had two impacts on my life. First, she made me impatient to run back home. I didn’t want to miss her growing up. And I was trying to compete for her attention with my wife, as she was practically spending the whole day with her. I was getting jealous!
Then I was down with Chikungunya. It was one heck of a sickness. I was feeling as if a train had run me down! Couldn’t eat, couldn’t do anything else except maybe sleep. And I was down mentally as well. I was messing with my mind too.
So with all these going on, I had a pile of work at work to finish. I still have the pile. Still trying to device a way to either do it, or run from it 
Anyway, we have come to the end of one of the most eventful years of my life. A lot happened this year. Most of it good! (Material for another post around the 31st, hopefully)
12:43pm, December 28th, 2006
Filtering dates with BETWEEN? Use ‘23:59:59:997′ instead ‘23:59:59:999′
Finally I found the mistake I had made. Thanks for Itzik Ben-Gan who has given the clear explanation of this. How do you filter the data for a particular time frame (say for 01st of Jan to 10th of Jan)? You have mainly two options;
SELECT SomeColumn FROM table1 WHERE DateCoulm BETWEEN ‘01/01/2006 00:00:00:000’ AND ‘01/10/2006 23:59:59:999’.
SELECT SomeColumn FROM table1 WHERE DateCoulm >= ‘01/01/2006 00:00:00:000’ AND DateCoulm <= ‘01/10/2006 23:59:59:999’.
If you know the issue, of course this is not the way of writing this. The issue is, if the table contains a record that the DateColumn value is ‘01/11/2006 00:00:00:000’, it will be one of the records in the result-set that is not what we expect. The reason for this is, when converting strings to datetime, the value will be rounded to the nearest three-hundredth of a second. So, in the above TSQL, the value of ‘01/10/2006 23:59:59:999’ is converted to the ‘01/11/2006 00:00:00:000’ that causes to qualify even ‘01/11/2006’ dated records.
We can correct the problem by changing the millisecond value to 997;
SELECT SomeColumn FROM table1 WHERE DateCoulm BETWEEN ‘01/01/2006 00:00:00:000’ AND ‘01/10/2006 23:59:59:997’.
but I think that most appropriate solution is;
SELECT SomeColumn FROM table1 WHERE DateCoulm >= ‘01/01/2006 00:00:00:000’ AND DateCoulm <= ‘01/11/2006 00:00:00:000’.
Note that this problem exist only with datetime not with smalldatetime.
7:51pm, December 26th, 2006
Music Meme Received
Random pic:
The software building as seen from the office cafe.
SpectralCentroid has passed me a meme and I don’t have the faintest idea what to do with it.
1. CD or vinyl? I have transcended corporeal formats. MP3.
2. An album you’ve been meaning to listen to? I plead my right to remain silent.
3. Grammys: Wha? They still have them?
4. Your favorite album: But… I’ve only one.
5. Invite 10 Music people for dinner. Who will it be? Mozart, Beethoven, Eminem, Bon Jovi, Pythagoras, Osama Bin Laden, George W. Bush… (I warned you)
6. Appropriate punishment for those who play Celine Dion’s “My heart will go on” while pretending that it’s still 1998: tie them up, connect player to un-interruptible power supply and put that track on infinite loop. Lock the room and throw away keys. Return three times a day to supply food through a hole in the wall.
7. Choose your favorite instrument and its best player from your point of view: Bagpipe. One of those guys with a skirt.
8. The one piece of music that can move you to tears: Like I’m going to tell?
9 You are an executive at a major label and have the power to green light one album a year. What would you do? Sell the favor to the highest bidder!
1:41am, December 26th, 2006
Free Microsot Exam Voucher [Limited Number]
Microsoft Sri Lanka is offering a generous gift (limited number) this Christmas season to all dotnetforum community members on a first come first serve basis.
The only catch being that the exam voucher expires on 31-Dec-2006, so you'll need to be ready to do the exam in super quick time.
The voucher entitles you to take one of the following exams:
- 70-431: TS: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - Implementation and Maintenance
- 70-536: TS: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 – Application Development Foundation
- 70-551: UPGRADE: MCAD Skills to MCPD Web Develop by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework
- 70-552: UPGRADE: MCAD Skills to MCPD Windows Developer by Using the Microsoft .NET
Framework
- 70-553: UPGRADE: MCSD Microsoft .NET Skills to MCPD Enterprise Application Developer
by Using the Microsoft .NET Framework: Part 1
- 70-235: TS: Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions Using Microsoft
BizTalk Server 2006
If you are interested please get in touch with Wela (BTW I just found out that he’s our new Developer Evangelist) on 777.281.021.
Another humble request is to not waste this precious resource as you might be depriving someone else a chance if you do get the voucher and not take the exam.
6:49pm, December 21st, 2006