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3.11.2012

Bridesmaids

"Bridesmaids" is a nice self-help comedy.  It's doesn't seem fair when people keep comparing it as female version of "Hangover", because they approach comedy very different. "Bridesmaids" takes down-to-earth approach, while "Hangover" does over to top craziness.  Characters in "Bridesmaids" more three dimensional.  There's no villains and heroes, instead we see people going thru lives.  It's more like a drama with many comically awkward situation.  I found "Bridesmaids" mature, enjoyable and highly recommended it.

Finally figured out how to get SQL Server working on Windows 8 Consumer Preview on Dell 6600


I tried and tried and eventually I found out how to make SQL Server working on Windows 8 Consumer Preview running on my office laptop DELL Precision 6600.  The solution is installing SQL Sever 2008 R2 (en_sql_server_2008_r2_enterprise_x86_x64_ia64_dvd_520517.iso  as in my MSDN ISO collection) and DO NOT install SQLSErver 2008 R2 Service Pack 1.   Once you installed sp1, you will get strange error about the master database file not formatted properly.

I hate solving problems by trial and error, but that's pretty much how I figured it out.  The important thing is that now I can continue doing my development.



Still no able to install SQL Server engine on Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Now that I have the RTM version of SQL Server 2012, I want to give it a try and see if it works on Windows 8 Consumer Preview.  But once again, it failed on my Dell M6600.  Same old error.  Basically not much help.  Sad.


Action required: Use the following information to resolve the error, uninstall this feature, and then run the setup process again.

Feature failure reason:
An error occurred during the setup process of the feature.

Error details:
Error installing SQL Server Database Engine Services Instance Features
Could not find the Database Engine startup handle.
Error code: 0x851A0018

Visit http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkId=20476&ProdName=Microsoft+SQL+Server&EvtSrc=setup.rll&EvtID=50000&ProdVer=11.0.2100.60&EvtType=0xD15B4EB2%400x4BDAF9BA%401306%4024&EvtType=0xD15B4EB2%400x4BDAF9BA%401306%4024 to get help on troubleshooting.

3.09.2012

Transcend JetFlash 500 16Gb Flash Drive still can't replace my SATA 2.5 inch portable harddisk

I brought a Transcend JetFlash 500 16Gb Flash Drive and was wondering if I can use it as a daily software development used harddisk instead of my SATA 2.5 inch portable harddisk.  Well the flash thumb drive failed.  In fact, it took almost an hour and it's still in progress of getting latest from our subversion server.  Clearly thumb drive is very bad for getting a lot of tiny files.

3.05.2012

Another Windows 8 Consumer Preview blue

Speaking of Windows 8 Consumer Preview problem, I have similar problem with Dell Prevision M6600.  This time it's related to installing SQL Server 2010 RC0 on Windows 8 Consumer Preview.  The installation FAILED to install SQL Server Engine, kept giving me "The following error has occured: Could not find the Database Engine Startup handle".   After try and try for 3 times, and already done System Update, and still the problem, I gave up.  Good that I don't rely on the OS working on M6600, or I'll be in great hell.

Power Saving and Windows 8 Consumer Preview - 2

Damn, just when I thought things are going well, I found the system hang.  Just no reason, and then it hangs.  Shitty Windows 8 Consumer Preview really is in beta quality.

Power Saving and Windows 8 Consumer Preview

I found my Windows 8 Consumer Preview crashed twice while listening to mp3 file.  The mp3 files was stored on a removable harddisk and it was playing directly from it using KMPlayer.  When the machine crashed, the screen was blank, and so it seemed to be like it's in power saving mode.  So I concluded that the problem handled when the machine kicked into power saving mode, and turned off  the feature that turned off screen after 10 minutes.  So far I haven't seen the crashing happened again.

Installing Windows 8 Consumer Preview on Dell Precision M6600

I had some bad experience installing Windows 8 Developer Preview on office machine DELL Precision M6600.  To be specfic, it did not work.

With Windows 8 Consumer Preview, I want to give it another chance, so I started by pressing F12 during bootup.  Interesting enough, there was 2 option: legacy booting DVD drive, or EFI booting DVD drive.  I started with EFI boot, and found that I can't use the 100Gb available space to create the 4th boot parition.  So I rebooted the machine and chose legacy booting DVD drive, and got the installation going.

At all the drivers were installed properly, but at least the Windows 8 Consumer Preview is running on that M6600.



Do not install Visual Studio 2010 on Windows 8 Consumer Preview

After spending quite some time, I found out that the reason why my Windows 8 Consume Preview OS corrupted was because of a incomplete Visual Studio 2010 Service Pack 1 installation.  In fact even, after I SUCCESSFULLY uninstalled Visual Studio 2010, uninstalling Visual Studio 2010 SP1 always hung my machine (regardless of whether I choose repair install or uninstall).  So I am stuck with this half baked environment.

I will just leave the OS as it is for now, but eventually I think I will reinstall the whole OS all over again so that there won't be VS 2010 sp1 left over in the system, and I also won't install VS 2010.  After, maybe it's a good thing to force myself to work on VS 11 instead.


3.01.2012

Sketchbook on Windows 8 Consumer Preview: Worry about WinRT

I have Windows 8 Consumer Preview installed on my EeeSlate, and so far it works pretty OK.  And thanks to this post, I even got my bluetooth keyboard and mouse working.  There's one thing, though, that troubles me: SketchBook Experss Metro app.  I tried it and found that the experience of using it extremely sluggish, especially when using zoom.  This is odd, because I have SketchBook Pro 2010 running on the desktop side and it worked pretty OK (it has a bit stylus precision problem but that's yet another story).  That makes me very worry about how effective can WinRT provide as a runtime platform.