Dear Paul,

Lynx Bottle Stinks

I had a great Eco idea, so I found a cool Mind Map style app in the Google Store called mural.ly, and used it to create my idea. I sent it to the Lynx marketing department, i'm still waiting a response back :-(

How much Memory does a SQL Instance need ?

This is a question that haunts us from time to time in our farmed SQL environments, it is often overlooked at the design phase, and a 'finger in the air' approach is used to arrive at an affordable figure. My standard answer to the question is  "How fast do you want your Instance to be ?". There are vast amounts of information on the web on this topic but none offer a simple way to get an answer.

I stumbled across this little gem of information on technet last week, it is a way to find a starting point for the Max Memory Setting for your Instance :

 ([Stolen pages] + [Reserved pages])/ 100

Line 20 of the following article : http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178067(v=sql.105).aspx

Big Snow

I was about 5 years old when we last had so much snow, I vaguely recall throwing my Dad's hammer into the snow for some reason, and his angry response as he realized it was lost in 3 foot of drifting snow.

This picture was taken on a walk around the village about 3 weeks ago, the snow plough has cleared the road but created mountains of snow on the pavements. I asked our elderly neighbour if I could get her any essential supplies, she asked for Lamb Chops and Chip Shop style frozen breaded Cod ! she's obviously never been to our local Spar. Interestingly the entire village had the same idea and descended to the Local Store to buy Bread and Milk; queues out of the door and of course no milk or bread in sight !

Loweswater Gold

5/5

The best golden Real Ale since 'Dirty Tackle'. 

Served in the awesome 'Dog and Gun' in Keswick.

Slightly fruity taste, light colored like Lager. very tasty.

We walked from the town centre, around the lake to Cat Bells, High Spy, then down into Rosthwaite, bus back into Keswick, and straight to the 'Dog and Gun', Perfect refreshment after a day on the fells !

Dirty Tackle

5/5

Possibly the best Real Ale i've ever tasted. Brewed by Wychwood. Golden, slight citrus taste, not too bitter, ultimate refreshment.
One of six guest ales served at my local 'The Crown and Liver', Ewloe.
Trying 'Sunbeam' next week if there's any left !

Fitting a Rear Mudguard on a frame which has no Chainstay bridge

Problem

My new multipurpose Cyclocross bike* has no Chainstay bridge to mount the mudguard fender onto.
*Focus Mares Cross 2010 in my case, trying to fit SKS Bluemel 45mm trekking guards.

Solution

When you purchase a new bike you always get a set of front & rear reflectors. If you remove the reflector from the bracket you will find the bracket makes a perfect custom fit for the rear mudguards to fit into. Clamp it to the down tube near the bottom bracket, then use the provided reflector screw to screw through the mudguard (pre-drill first) into the bracket.

Genesis Day 01 Alfine Review 2012

This is the sort of do-it-all bike that any retro commuter/cyclocrosser dreams of as the ultimate single bike solution; low maintenance gears, clean steel lines, on/off road friendly, affordable ?. Having owned one I can say that only its good looks apply.

Gears

They constantly need adjusting; there is a barrel adjuster to do this however you do not want to be tuning your gears up every few rides. I think cable & chain stretch caused it initially, but even after 3 months it was still requiring a tune up all the time because of dodgy gear changes (which simply involves lining up 2 markers in the window of the hub). The range of gears was perfect though, allowing me to commute the steepest north wales hills with a rucksack full of IT junk.

Weight and handling

Not far off the weight of a moped, and it shows when riding it. Once you get it up to speed its ok, but something was not right, I couldn't put my finger on it, but it felt a bit like there was a flywheel attached to the back of the bike. I didn't even bother attempt Moel Famau on it.

Sizing

I had a 54cm. It was perfectly sized for my 32" leg, 5ft10" frame. The pic shows it setup at my seat height.

Mudguards

Standard SKS bluemel trekking 45mm fitted fine, albeit with some bending of 2 arms to get around the disk brake. Tip: don't cut the stays down until they are fitted and bolted up, prevents cutting them too short if you start bending the stays around brakes.

Automating SQL Instance Installations

Introduction

In the company I work for we build hundreds of new SQL instances each year, I was asked to develop a fully automated way to install SQL, with the aim to speed up the build process and standardize all SQL builds for all SQL install features (RDBMS, SSAS, SSIS, SSRS. Clustered and Standalone), I googled it and found nothing on this subject, it appears nobody has done this before, or at least not documented yet anyway. This Blog will highlight the process in as much detail as I get time to document; its a very big process but once implemented requires only a very small amount of human interaction. Here we go..........

Prerequisites

An SCCM management server that is currently managing your server environment, access to create collections, adverts, task sequences.
Powershell skills.
Active Directory read access.
SQL installation skills, with a knowledge of the config.ini for silent installs.

Quick view of the end-to-end process