Patenting the conecpt of Patents and links

I wonder if the concept of Patents is patented.
Anyway, a few links which discuss the stupidity and greed of people concerning patents:

Believe it or not! Some ass**** patented the idea of swinging on a swing, and I'm not even talking about Java.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6368227-fulltext.html


Legendary Richard Stallman talks about the implications of software patents.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2005/jun/20/comment.comment


Read this idea for a patent.

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%2220050160005%22.PGNR.&OS=DN/20050160005&RS=DN/20050160005


A small article software programmers.

http://gadgetopia.com/post/2727

Kudos MediaMax !!!

MediaMax users have been facing problems with their accounts for sometime now.
I too couldn't access any of my files.....TILL TODAY!
How happy I am to see all my pics and programs back online!!
MediaMax rocks!

SqlDependency not firing

Grrrr...after hours of trying various pieces of C# code and tinkering with SQL Server 2005 settings it turns out that the database owner was the problem.

class Program
{
static string connStr = "Server=DARKSTAR; Initial Catalog=MyDatabase; Integrated Security=false; User Id=sa; Password=XXXXXXXXXX";

static SqlDependency dep;

static void Main(string[] args)
{
SqlDependency.Start(connStr);
TestSqlNotificiation();
SqlDependency.Stop(connStr);
}

static void TestSqlNotificiation()
{
try
{
using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connStr))
{
conn.Open();

SqlCommand cmd = conn.CreateCommand();

cmd.CommandText = "Select RollNo, [Name] from dbo.Students";

dep = new SqlDependency(cmd);

dep.OnChange += new OnChangeEventHandler(OnDataChange);

SqlDataReader dr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
{
while (dr.Read())
{
Console.WriteLine("Name = " + dr[1].ToString());
}
}

dr.Close();

Console.WriteLine("Waiting for any data changes...\nPress to end program.");
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
finally
{
//SqlDependency.Stop(connStr);
}
}

static void OnDataChange(object sender, SqlNotificationEventArgs e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.Info.ToString());
Console.WriteLine(e.Source.ToString());
}
}
}

This is the program which should fire the OnDataChange function when rows change in the Students table. However, the event was simply not firing.

Finally I chanced upon this article which made everything work right. It turned out that I was having problems with the database owner. I just changed it to 'sa' for the time-being:

ALTER AUTHORIZATION ON DATABASE::MyDatabase TO sa;

SQL Server 2005 Express Advanced Edition reports AGTACCOUNT error during Setup

SQL Server 2005 Express Advanced Edition reports following error during setup:

"SQL Server Setup has determined that the following account properties are not specified: 'AGTACCOUNT' . The properties specify the startup account for the services that are installed. To proceed, refer to the template.ini and set the properties to valid account names. If you are specifying a windows user account, you must also specify the password for the account."

After trying some of the stuff mentions at http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=365116&SiteID=1 I finally gave up.

But wait a minute, there was something about a template.ini file.
This is what I did and it worked. First copy the install files from your Read-Only media (CD/DVD) to a folder on your hard-drive. Open the template.ini file (directly under the root folder containing the setup files).

Look for the following section:

; Note that if SQLBrowser is already installed, SQLBROWSERACCOUNT and SQLBROWSERPASSWORD are ignored.

SQLBROWSERACCOUNT=
SQLBROWSERPASSWORD=

SQLACCOUNT=
SQLPASSWORD=

AGTACCOUNT="NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE"
AGTPASSWORD=

ASACCOUNT=
ASPASSWORD=

RSACCOUNT=
RSPASSWORD=
;--------------------------------------------------------------------
; To use the *AUTOSTART features, specify 1 to start automatically or 0 to start manually.

See the bolded line, all you need to is specify the account for it and then launch setup.exe with the following parameters:
setup.exe /settings c:\template.ini

Looking at the command line, it seems likely that you could get away by copying and editing just the template.ini file instead of all the installation files to hard-disk.

CSV Reader Quick and Dirty

Well, this program like many others was developed by me, for me.
I needed a better utility than notepad to view my log files which
are in CSV format. What better way to spend a weekend than developing
a new utility?

The CSV format may look simple but it can get pretty complicated if
you take into account "all" capabilities of CSV format. If you don't
believe me take a look at this:
http://www.shaftek.org/publications/drafts/mime-csv/draft-shafranovich-mime-csv-02.html

Anyway, I didn't really need a CSV reader which supports the full CSV
specification. I just needed something which can read "my" log files!
As it turned out, many of the data-exports and log files generated by
other applicatoin were also read successfully by CSV Reader.
This was reason enough for me to believe that this little utility might
be useful to others and this is why I am making it available on the www.

Here's a screenshot:


MD5 Hash of Executable: E9D023ECEB07A8AF421F155CCD6224BF
MD5 Hash of ZIP: 63CB43CF9AF08CFA0629540B96E175F8

Download It!

A Paradoxical approach to Energy Saving and ECO Friendliness

Here's a post about an electric sports car.
http://news.com.com/Silicon+Valley+engineers+peek+at+the+Tesla/2100-11389_3-6181574.html?tag=nefd.lede
Good thing: "its electric" and should be Eco-friendly.
Paradox: It a two seater! Why not use a bike? If you are going to waste so much energy running a car, at least make sure 4 people can travel in it!

Version 1.1 of Net Use

Just 2 days since I posted the "NetUse" utility and there's already a new version!
Improvements:
- Old "net use" connections are remembered so that when you want to connect to 'that server' you never seem to remember, its listed in the 'New Connection' dialog along with the login id you had used for it. Passwords are not remembered so you will need to put in the password again.

Download It
MD5 Hash of Setup: 875FFDC77AA32242748BDA7FD0A3D734

Thanks to Harsha for giving the idea.