The importance of a good installer
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Software Development
Years ago I used to get all the computer magazines and install all the applications on the cover disk but I no longer buy computer magazines and instead spend half my life installing applications found on the Internet and then the rest of my life is divided between trying to get the applications to work or uninstalling them!
Is this a good installer?
OK, maybe I am exaggerating a little but it is interesting to note how the installer effects my opinion not only of the software but also of the software company. The ease of using an installer will also significantly effect some but not all of my purchasing decisions. The effect of an installer varies depending on the size of the problem the software is required for. If for example it’s a matter of convenience then battling with an installer just isn’t worth it and if the market is saturated with alternatives to your product then your duff instaler will only encourage me to try one of your competitors products. On the other hand if I am evaluating “enterprise” solutions then I might fight with the installer for longer as the potential benefits of using the software will hopefully outweigh the time spent installing.
I can’t understand why someone goes to all the trouble of writing good software but makes it so hard to try it to see if it meets my needs. Some of the common problems I find with installers are:-
Read the rest of this entry…
Tags: Add new tag, Opinion
Light or faint color text on black and white HP LaserJet
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Fixes to problems
The nearest printer to my desk is a HP LaserJet 4050 and whenever I print coloured text I find that the printer prints the colored text too light. At first I thought the problem might be because I am using Vista x64 (I still accuse x64 first but it’s rarely the problem!) and anyway my manager has the same issue and he isn’t using Vista.
It appears that the reason I experience the problem now and not before is because I am using Microsoft Office Word 2007 which uses color in it’s templates. I tried telling the printer driver to print color text as black but it still didn’t make any difference.
In the end I reverted to the HP Universal PCL5/e driver and now everything prints as I had expected. So if you have the same problem try downloading and using the PCL 5 driver from the HP website.
If like me you weren’t sure if you would miss anything by going back to PCL5 you can read more at Wikipedia PCL entry and also PCL 3 and PCL 5/6 Features and Differences from HP.
Video of Jason Fried's talk at Business of Software 2008
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Business of software
Jason Fried talking at Business of Software 2008
Neil has posted Jason Fried’s talk from the Business of Software 2008 online and I recommend you take a look.
It would be easy to be inspired by Jasons talk and think you could just replicate his approach and create your own successfull business but one of the things that the video highlighted for me was that whilst books, videos and courses can teach you lots of things about how to run a company it is important to define your own business flavour and not just copy the approach of others. I don’t totally believe in the 37signals approach, I don’t neccessarily have the same objectives and his approach is very specific to the people that they employ so it wouldn’t make sense for me to take his ideas and use them for my own business and although I might get away with it for a while eventually the truth would catch up with me and the business would get very messy.
The video is very watchable, full of helpful ideas and it was interesting to hear how things work at 37signals – go watch it now!
Video: Jason Fried of 37signals speaking at Business of Software 2008
Tags: Business of software, video
New design, new blog software and apologies
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under General
There have been a lot of changes for me in the past year and this has meant that this blog hasn’t been as active as I would have liked but this is hopefully going to change so…
I have migrated from Community Server 2007 to WordPress and took the opportunity to clear up the messy design and perform some housekeeping. Unfortunately, the migration was completely smooth and so some of the comments are coming from a user called http:// so apologies to anyone effected by this but hopefully the new design is more readable.
Example: Updating a remote customer database schema
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Software Development
Overview
A common use of the Red Gate SQL Comparison SDK is to package up the latest version of a database schema and send it to customers as an executable.
This example demonstrates how easy it is to use the SDK to do this.
NOTE: SQL Comparison SDK is to be the new name for SQL Toolkit
Tags: .net, Red Gate Software, SQL Comparison SDK
Microsoft VHD administrator password
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Fixes to problems
Ha! I just spent the last ten minutes trying to get into a microsoft VHD. The administrator password is contained in the readme file but I just couldn’t get it to work!
Eventually, it dawned on me… keyboard layout!!! The password was pass@word1 and because I am in the UK it was coming out as pass”word1 but of course as it was a password textbox I couldn’t see that.
Tags: Virtual PC, Virtual Server
SQL Toolkit introduction
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Software Development
In my last post I talked about writing an example application using the Red Gate SQL Toolkit but it occurred to me that I ought to mention a bit more about what SQL Toolkit is and what it can be used for.
Tags: .net, Red Gate Software, SQL Comparison SDK, SQL Server
Red Gate SQL Toolkit: SQL Deployment example
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Software Development
We are getting a lot of customers interested in using SQL Toolkit for deploying database updates to remote customer sites. Using SQL Toolkit you can distribute a single executable to your customers and use the Toolkit to do a schema comparison and then automatically update the customers database with the differences between a snapshot from your database and the customers database.
Tags: .net, Red Gate Software, SQL Comparison SDK, SQL Server
Error: The Add-in cannot be loaded by Outlook
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Fixes to problems
After uninstalling Symantec Anti-virus I found that when I started Outlook 2007 it came up with the following error:
The Add-in “Symantec AntiVirus 10.1″ (c:\program files(x86)\Symantec Antivirus\vpnsece4.dll) cannot be loaded by Outlook. Please contact the Add-in manufacturer for an update. If no update is available please uninstall the Add-in.
The problem was that the addin didn’t appear in Tool->Trust Center->Add-ins so I couldn’t uninstall it from there.
Fortunately, deleting the file extend.dat from c:\users\<User Name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook and restarting Outlook done the trick. That was obvious – NOT!!
Visual Studio development web server dynamic port numbering problem
Posted by Dave Mellors | Filed under Software Development
The problem
I had this problem in Visual Studio 2005 and now I have it in Visual Web Developer 2008 express edition where when debugging a web application using the development web server the dynamic port number used by the server didn’t match what Visual Studio had used for the web browser. It was always wrong and normally out by two or three port numbers.
For example the cassini web development server starts and I can see in the notification area what port number it uses
However the web browser started by Visual studio looks like this
Clearly that isn’t going to work.
The Solution
I managed to track down the problem to my firewall software part of the ESET Smart Security Suite. Now, I am pretty sure that when I was using Visual Studio 2005 and had the problem that I was using either McAfee, Norton/Symantec or possibly even the Outpost firewall software. My solution won’t work if you aren’t using Eset but hopefully it will help you to look in the right area.
Tags: ASP.NET, Visual Studio
