Monthly Archive for December, 2007

Maija and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and have a great new year’s celebration, followed by an excellent 2008!

We’re thoroughly enjoying our holiday. We’ve had the chance to hang out with almost all of the people that mean something to me, so that’s great. If we haven’t hung out with you and I mean something to you, give us a call :)

We’ve also been sampling all the good foodz, and have been loving the fine weather. Yesterday was a lot of volleyball and swimming. Also been playing a lot of Settlers, yes! Today might bring wakeboarding. The next few weeks will see us at the top of NZ, and then through the middle and the South Island.

I had need to move the database my Windows Server Update Services is using from the Windows Internal Database to my full SQL Server (2005). Following are my steps:

1. Microsoft Article on the steps required, I used this as a guide, but as I had already installed WSUS, I had to vary things a bit.

2. Enabling Nested Triggers on your SQL 2005 database

How to: Configure the nested triggers Option (SQL Server Management Studio)
Use the nested triggers option to control whether an AFTER trigger can cascade; that is, perform an action that initiates another trigger, which initiates another trigger, and so on. When nested triggers is set to 0, AFTER triggers cannot cascade. When nested triggers is set to 1 (the default), AFTER triggers can cascade to as many as 32 levels. INSTEAD OF triggers can be nested regardless of the setting of this option.
To set the nested triggers option
1. In Object Explorer, right-click a server, and then select Properties.
2. On the Advanced page, set the Allow Triggers to Fire Others option to True (the default) or False.

3. Manage the Windows Internal Database with SQL Management Studio

SQL Server Embedded Edition is just a specially configured named instance of the SQL Server Express database engine which can be accessed only by certain Windows Services, or by SQL Server Management Studio Express using \\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query as server name.

4. Detach the WSUS database, copy it across to the new location and attach it to the SQL Server.

5. At this point I pulled a bit from the WSUS 2.0 article here. Specifically about adding the computer account of the front end server to the SQL Server security logins, and

6. Adjust the registy of the front end server to point to the new database location. Close your management console and restart the Update Services service, and IIS. Boom!

Enjoy.

We’re there! Our bodies are thoroughly confused, but we’re safe and sound. And eating delicious pies!

So we end up in this hotel right, in Porvo? Turns out it’s a spa; quite a luxurious place. I spent the morning in the sauna, steam room, swimming pool and hot tub. In that order. Nice little bonus that was.

We eventually got back to Helsinki Vantaa and checked in once more. But lo, mysteriously our bags are now far too heavy! The new flights Finnair have us booked on have a checked baggage weight limit of 20kg each. I did my best to persuade the staff that the woman the night before had seen fit to take our bags without a question. Turns out she was likely in error, but Finnair offered to absorb half of the cost anyway. What cost, you might ask? Around 100 Euros. PER KILO! So we were looking at a bill of some 1300 Euros, just to get our bloody bags to New Zealand. At that point I decided no, I am not paying anything for this nonsense, so we began the time honoured tradition of repacking suitcases and underwear in a busy airport. “Luckily” Maija had brought a bunch of crap we didn’t need, like my Claymore sized Maglight, so we were able to shed 13KG (the half way point) and not lose anything we needed at all. Finnair upheld their end of the bargain and swallowed the rest, and gracefully checked our bags through to Auckland.

Mother.

From then onwards it’s gone pretty much to plan, except that neither of us got any sleep on the flight. Finnair offers Sony PSPs in flight (for “the younger ones”) so I spent much of the flight playing Locoroco. Which is honestly the WIERDEST video game I have EVER seen, but I rather enjoyed it. We had an otherwise uneventful flight.

Hong Kong is warm and hazy :) We took the airport express train into Hong Kong Island and walked around for a few hours. We had grabbed a bunch of maps and sightseeing brochures at the airport so we got to see a few local attractions. I hunted for the fabled underground video game and DVD stores, but all to no avail. Bah!

Anyway, Hong Kong airport is seemingly deserving of it’s “Best Airport” award. It’s massive, but I’ve not felt overwhelmed or lost at any point. And the interwebs flow free and fast. Respect! Another hour and we should be in the air.

We were doing so well. We were at the airport nice and early, met some friends (one of whom was traveling at the same time as we were), found out said friends had just got engaged (congratulations Satu and Tukka!). Then we checked in, waited around, did some shopping, the usual drill. Only to find out our flight to Frankfurt was delayed, at first “indefinitely”, and then finally by 2 hours. Just sufficient to ruin all our connecting flights.

We could go to Frankfurt anyway, but there’s no other flights to Sydney, they’re all full. There’s only 3 of us needing the flights… ALL FULL. There’s also nothing else, through London, anywhere. So they’ll put is in a hotel and arrange flights for tomorrow, no big deal. Except there’s no available rooms in Helsinki, on a Tuesday night, so we’re driven 45 minutes to Porvo. The hotel’s pretty great, it’s a spa it seems. Might take in some special treatment tomorrow morning as payment for these woes (no one here has my credit card, thanks Finnair).

Tomorrow we’ll be driven back to the airport, and fly to Hong Kong. We get in early in the morning, and don’t leave till the afternoon, so we may try and take a look a quick look around. Anyone have any recommendations, real quick? Then we’re off to Auckland.

:)

We took the Pendolino to Helsinki last night, dragging our 3 big suitcases and backpacks behind us. The trip felt shorter than usual (3 hours).

Tonight we’re flying to Frankfurt, and then to Singapore, and then Sydney, and finally Auckland. Wish us luck.

I know it’s early, I normally save this till New Year’s, but that’s not gonna work this year. This is probably my favourite mix yet, the stuff I picked up this year just blows my mind. Please, download, spread it around.

From the mix page:

The annual New Year’s mix is a little early this year as I’ll be in NZ for New Year’s and am not bringing my gear. But early’s good in this case, cause this mix is a real treat! 2007 has brought us some great music; I just can’t get enough of Joonas Hahmo (2 tracks here, he’s also the guy behind Alt+F4). Special respect should also go to The Chemical Brothers who’s “We Are the Night” album was a highlight of this year for me. I tried to get something of theirs into this mix, but it wasn’t happening.

Anyway, enjoy! And let me know what you think.

As usual, right click, Save As.
High quality MP3.
Low quality MP3.

Tracklist:
Joonas Hahmo – Together
Gareth Emery, Runaway – Outrageous (Shiloh remix)
Gui Boratto, Carlo Dall’ Anese – Beautiful Song (Fabio Castro remix)
Digitalism – Zdarlight
Tiesto – Bright Morningstar
Oliver Smith – Tomahawk
Joonas Hahmo – Sound of Sunday
Above and Beyond – Air for Love (Airwave remix)
Ulrich Schnauss – Stars