My first blog post in a long time!

So I archived some data from our database yesterday and I needed to shrink the database file so I ran the “Shrink Database” task in Management Studio. The database is over 500GB in size and I checked 7 hours later and the database shrink operation is still going. I got a little worried because someone needs to use this database today and I’m not sure if the …

We had to upgrade our mail gateway/anti-spam software on Sunday because one of our vendors requires us to use encryption when exchanging emails with them. The easiest solution is to use opportunistic TLS, where the server will always try to connect to the other server using the TLS protocol. If the other server supports TLS, then traffic is encrypted. If not, then the email is sent using just regular SMTP without encryption.

This is actually …

My colleague informed me earlier that RSA just released this new version of their SecurID software for BlackBerry sometime last month. I installed it right away on my BlackBerry 8330 with OS v4.5.0.131 and it finally worked!!! I’ve been trying to get their software to work on my BlackBerry since last year but my OS wasn’t supported.

This new version also now supports RIM OS version 4.7, so if you have a BlackBerry Storm this …

I was just updating some documentation on our wiki and found some old notes on automating Office 2007 installation. We upgraded our Microsoft Office software early last year from Office 2003 (and a few Office XP) to Office 2007 and this simple installation script saved us a lot of time. Here are the steps:

Step 1. Copy the contents of the Office 2007 installation CD (or package) to a network share (eg. \\server\Office12).

Step …

If you’re looking for a Twitter application for your BlackBerry, I recommend that you give Tiny Twitter a try. It has a nice user interface, plenty of options, and supports keyboard shortcuts.

This is the first mobile Twitter application that I’ve tried and I’m not really planning on trying the other ones out there because I’m happy with this one already. It does pretty much all the Twitter-related functions that I need, but I’m still …