Friday, December 26, 2014

MCSA SQL Server 2012 and Best Wishes

I can finally announce that this Wednesday, just before Christmas, I nailed the 70-463 exam. About 3 weeks ago I already passed 70-462, so I am now qualified as MCSA SQL Server 2012, whohoo! :-)



And now on to my MCSE BI.. But not before 2015 starts.. Let's take a few days of family time to relax and start the learning experience again in January!

I wish everybody a merry and joyful Christmas (yes, we have 2 of them days over here :) and see or speak to you in the new year!

Tuesday, December 16, 2014

DSM 5.1-5021 Update Release Notes

This morning I found an update for my Synology DS214se. I got the release notes from synology.com. You can get yours here. Select your model and click on Release Notes.

Updates to the different app "Stations" (Video, Audio, Download, etc) are also available in the package center.

DSM Version 5.1-5021

What's New

  1. This update includes all bug fixes as well as security fixes in the previously released critical updates since DSM 5.1-5004.

Fixed Issues

  1. Enhanced data security by disabling "Mount automatically on start-up" after restoring an encrypted shared folder.
  2. Fixed a vulnerability that allows senders to access unintended destinations during a backup job.
  3. Enhanced stability on Amazon S3 on large file backup.
  4. Upgraded OpenVPN to 2.3.6 to address a security vulnerability.
  5. Fixed a vulnerability that allows local users to initiate a denial of service by queuing the maximum number of file descriptors (CVE-2014-7824).
  6. Upgraded PHP to 5.5.19 to address multiple vulnerabilities (CVE-2014-3669, CVE-2014-3670, CVE-2014-3668, and CVE-2014-3710).
  7. Improved DTV dongle compatibility.
  8. Improved file-copying stability on DS2015xs.
  9. Fixed an issue where DS213+ and DS413 could power up unexpectedly when backup tasks are scheduled.
  10. Minor bug fixes.

Thursday, December 4, 2014

(Not) Using CTRL+ENTER to send e-mail with Outlook

I'm always in favour of keyboard shortcuts and hotkeys to make life easier.
However, sometimes they're not the nicest thing to have, especially when you're in the middle of typing an email and you accidentally press CTRL+ENTER instead of SHIFT+ENTER...

Aaaaand it's gone

When you enable the CTRL+ENTER option in Outlook, you get the following popup when using it for the first time.













From here, you have 3 options:

  1. Outlook always sends the message (select the box and press Yes)
  2. Outlook never sends the message (select the box and press No)
  3. Outlook should always ask you what to do (do not select the box and choose Yes or No)

However, when you (accidentally) took option 1 or 2 and want to revert that so you can choose 3 again, you're kinda stuck. Disabling and re-enabling the option under "File > Options > section Mail > option group: Send Messages > option: CTRL + ENTER sends a message" doesn't show you the pop-up anymore.
Ofcourse, there are other options: you can edit the registry to delete or modify the value chosen for CtrlEnterSends in the Outlook preferences:
Key: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\<version>\Outlook\Preferences
Value name: CtrlEnterSends
Value type: REG_DWORD
Value data: 0 = Outlook will not send when pressing CTRL+ENTER
                   1 = Outlook will send when pressing CTRL+ENTER
                   2 = Outlook will prompt you when pressing CTRL+ENTER
When this key is missing, Outlook will behave as if its value was set to 2.
Hope this helps!
@NickyvV
I found this solution on: http://www.msoutlook.info/question/271.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Can't Find Chrome 64-bit Version Download?

It's not that you're not looking good enough. Just move to the United States and all will be solved...

~30 minutes earlier
So I wanted to get the 64-bit stable version of Chrome and as several websites point out, you'll have to get it yourself explicitly because it won't update to the 64-bit version. Well that's fine, I just go the the website I was pointed to: https://www.google.be/chrome/browser/
Unable to see the specific link to the 64-bit version I just hit the Download button and hope I get the chance to choose between 32- and 64-bit later. Well, that's not going to happen.
 After searching for a few minutes (yes, in Chrome...) I keep coming back to the same page and not seeing anything about a 64-bit version of chrome.
Then I scroll down the site and see a little language-selection drop-down (or actually a drop-up).
When I set this to English - United States a download link magically appears beneath the Download button... After checking, all the English languages seem to work, the other are not working.


Thanks for that Google.

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Suggested reading for August 14, 2014

After some months of being busy with my son / other things / holiday / writers block / other excuses.. I thought I'd start my blog with some useful links.

I came across some nice articles and blog posts in the last weeks I wanted to share:
Hopefully you can get something useful out of here!

@NickyvV

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Book Review: Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server 2012

I have just finished reading this book (Reporting with Microsoft SQL Server 2012) and wanted to let you know my opinion.

I believe the book is a very good starting point for beginners in SSRS or Power View. I also got some gotcha's out of it, so there may be interesting points for more experienced users.

Overall I feel the content described is correct (some minor typos aside), thorough and easy to read, but it is on a pretty basic level. So if you have (almost) never worked with Reporting Services I believe it is worthwhile reading the chapters on SSRS, but if you're already a(n) (more) experienced user, I don't believe this will add very much to your knowledge.
While chapter 2 also covers new features in SQL 2012 (like data alerts) and could therefore be of use for experienced users, chapter 3 will not cover many new things in my opinion.

Because Power View is a much younger product than SSRS, this book might also be a good starting point. It covers the differences between SharePoint and Excel as a starting point for a Power View report very well. It also let's you create a basic report and publish this to SharePoint.

All in all a good and easy read on the subject.

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Dashboarding for Power Pivot and Excel

Last week I heard the exciting news that Kasper de Jonge's ( B | T ) book Dashboarding for Power Pivot and Excel will be available shortly. I understand the e-book is also only available when the paperback is on Amazon, so we'll have to wait for that too.



What you cán do is you can already pre-order your copy here of course.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Cannot delete Evernote shortcut from desktop

I have had this annoying issue for a while now and decided to fix it.
After installing Evernote (and Toggl also), I wasn't able to delete the shortcut from my desktop.
I found some hints in the right direction on the Evernote support site, but they didn't quite solve the issue.

Apparently it resides in the User\Public folder, but I couldn't Del or Shift+Del it there either. However, when I right click and choose Delete (as Admin) I was finally able to delete the shortcut.



Hope this helps..


Friday, May 2, 2014

70-461

You could say: -391. Because that's what 70 minus 461 is.. :)

But I actually meant to say 70-461: Querying Microsoft SQL Server 2012, that's the exam I finally did last friday and succeeded with a score of 981!

Now up to 70-462 for my MCSA.


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