Sunday, November 30, 2008

ODBC Provider Bug?

ODBC Provider Bug?
James Hippolite
Friday 28-Nov-08 09:45

Has anybody heard of a bug in the ODBC provider for Excel where, if a column has 10 NULLS in a row, then the entire column comes in as NULL?

Paul Bibby
Friday 28-Nov-08 09:57

Don’t know if this is similar to your experience ?

http://www.stata.com/statalist/archive/2006-08/msg00457.html

Leigh Hunt
Friday 28-Nov-08 10:40

I ran in to I think the exact same issue a number of times years ago, importing mixed field types from Excel into Access, using the JET driver.

I think Paul's answer is probably the one your after, especially the links to http://www.dicks-blog.com/archives/2004/06/03/external-data-mixed-data-types/ and http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;257819.

However, I encountered mine about 8 years ago, using older versions of the software, so thought I'd post it here incase the above solutions don't fix it for you... (I notice one article states that the MaxScanRows argument doesn't work in a connection string - well it certainly works in the registry:

I changed the following entries in the registry:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\3.5\Engines\Text]
"MaxScanRows"=dword:0001869f
"ImportMixedTypes"="Text"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet\4.0\Engines\Text]
"MaxScanRows"=dword:0001869f
"ImportMixedTypes"="Text"

After this, all imports would work fine for me.

Cheers,
Leigh.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Microsoft Unplugged November Session

Session 1:

Session 2:

  • Visual Studio Tips and Tricks
  • Increase your Productivity
  • Kirk Jackson (from Xero): http://feeds.feedburner.com/pageofwords
  • 3:30pm to 5:00pm
  • Very entertaining presenter. I've seen this particular talk 3 times now, and each time I learn something new, but can in no manner memorise everything that was said: too much information!

Microsoft Developer Feedback Forum

Attended this yesterday (Thursday 13 November) morning. Contents confidential, although we were recorded! I gave some feedback on developer issues:
  • I hate the Ribbon (Ivon Towlson loves it).
  • Generally very pleased with development suite.
  • I wish the Membership Provider didn't insist on utilising a password all the time. This is because, in an Intranet scenario, I can ascertain the Windows login ID of the user (authentication). Therefore, all I need to do in order to verify whether the user is allowed into one of my apps (authorisation) is to check off their name from a list. No passwords required. But because that's how the Membership Provider is structured, therefore I can't use it.
  • I use SubSonic as my ORM of choice, although I understand with the demise of LINQ 2 SQL, that the Entities Framework will be (soon) the ORM solution offered by Microsoft.
  • I'm not involved in licensing of Microsoft Products here at Telecom, for which I am truely grateful, although I did have input into the decision to continue receiving DVDS as part of MSDN. Starting from the next annual subscription, I will be reversing my earlier recommendation and instead choose to download all MSDN content that we require.
  • I highly rate and highly value the contribution of Microsoft to the establishment and support of the .NET community events. For me, these are career enhancing opportunities to meet with like-minded individuals, learn from them, socialise with them, and give back.
  • On the question of Trust, I do not trust Microsoft to stick with any one technology, but to constant move with the industry adoption options. I do trust them to be around for a number of years. I don't trust them to fully support NZ (e.g. with Data Centres) any time soon. I do trust them to innovate continually (even if that means they hire innovative individuals like Rob Conery).
  • One idea I didn't voice, because it was uncalled-for and unmerited was this. With a new socialist president in America, will he force monopolies like Microsoft to split up? NZ did it to Telecom, so don't tell me it doesn't happen!

Thursday, November 6, 2008

User Group PDC Event

From Kirk:Hi,

Thanks for RSVPing for tonight's meeting!

This is just a quick reminder that we start slightly earlier than usual (5:30pm), and our venue is different (Mezzanine Room, Level 1, Wellington Library). The room is just next to the lift on the first floor, before you go into the library.

It's looking like we're going to have a whirl-wind 2 hours going through some of the cool stuff from the Professional Developers Conference (PDC) last week:
- Cloud services / AzureChris Auld
- Silverlight 2.0James Newton-King
- New VB.NET featuresJames Hippolite
- SharepointChan Kulathilake
- Windows 7Mark Orange
- Oslo and modelingOwen Evans
- New C# 4.0 featuresKirk Jackson
I also have a few prizes to give away, so make sure you get there on time!

For those of you that have invited your kids, there will be a prize or two for them too.

Cheers, see you tonight,
Kirk
From James:

My presentation was on VB.NEXT, the Next Version of VB.NET.
My slides are here: http://cid-a93b6100e328706d.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Presentations/VB.Next.pps
I covered the following topics:

  • Where is Visual Basic Headed?
  • Co-Development with C#
  • New Features
  • Future Trends

The New Features I covered were:

  • Automatic Properties
  • Multi-Line Lambdas (and Sub Lambda with PLINQ)
  • Generic Variance (too hard, left this for Kirk!)
  • Dynamic Language Runtime Interop
  • Collection Initializers
  • Array Literals
  • Implicit Line Continuations
  • Embedded Primary Interop Assemblies

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

SQL Server 2008 DBA Training

Event: Microsoft In-Person Training Forum
Venue: Brewery Bar, Corner of Taranaki and Cable Streets on the Waterfront, Wellington
Start: Tuesday 4 November 2008 @ 8:30am
End: Tuesday 4 November 2008 @ 4:30pm
Audience: IT Implementer, IT Professional
Overview: The SQL Server DBA Tarining Forum is designed to help DBA's get up to speed on some of the key featuers and strategies they will face when considering deploying and migrating to SQL Server 2008.  During the forum we covered topics that included:
  • what's new in SQL Server 2008
  • Architectural considerations for SQL Server 2008
  • Migration strategies
  • tips and tricks
  • making the most of new features such as spatial data
  • auditing
  • and more...
Presenter: Jeremy Boyd from Mindscape
That boy gets around: he was at PDC in LA last week! (Slight case of jealousy here.)