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26 August 2008 01:24

Tool Review: Quicken

I've used Quicken for a long time now and it's the center of how I manage finances at home. There are similar packages on market from other vendors (MS Money, etc) which probably offer similar features, but I've always liked that Intuit stays...
Posted by Andy Warren | with no comments
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05 August 2008 01:12

Tool Review: Snarfer

I'm probably in the minority, but I use an offline reader for consuming feeds. Nothing wrong with browser based readers other than that require you to be online, not always possible - airline flights for example. I looked at a few and finally settled...
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01 August 2008 01:37

Tool Review: Hamachi VPN

Maybe I haven't looked at the right products, but two years ago when we needed a VPN solution there wasn't much that was either reasonably low cost or reasonably easy to administer. We needed something that would allow a handful of users remote...
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30 July 2008 01:48

Tool Review: Servers Alive

Not all of us work at companies big enough to justify the expense/time it takes to implement something like MS Mom, Altiris, etc. For years I've recommended Servers Alive as a reasonably priced (about $200) solution that lets you do basic fault monitoring...
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28 July 2008 01:40

Tool Review: Microsoft Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel

It's downright common these days to download programs as ISO images, but XP doesn't have a native viewer for them. The Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel is an easy way to create a virtual drive letter, point it at the ISO, and then it 'mounts'...
Posted by Andy Warren | 1 comment(s)
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24 July 2008 01:30

Tool Review: TaskSwitchXP

For longer than I care to count I've used the Alt-Tab Powertoy from MS to get a nicer view of running applications, alt-tab being one of those things that is hard wired into my brain at this point. It works, but occasionally it's flaky, doesn't...
Posted by Andy Warren | with no comments
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22 July 2008 01:01

Tool Review: Password Safe

I think we all struggle to keep up with various credentials needed to live our internet lives (single sign on still a dream!) and too often fall back on using the same password over and over again. A few years ago Steve Jones introduced me to Password...
Posted by Andy Warren | with no comments
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01 July 2008 01:22

Quick and Dirty Code Compare

MS Word 2007 (and probably earlier versions) have the ability to do a basic document compare, useful if you're at a location that doesn't have more advanced comparison tools for TSQL. Just load your scripts into separate Word documents, click...
Posted by Andy Warren | with no comments
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30 June 2008 01:17

Why Format TSQL?

Recently I had the chance to help a student debug a problem on a production server. It appeared to be failing because duplicate uniqueidentifiers were being created. Thinking that unlikely because the G in GUID stands for global, we dug in but found the...
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14 March 2008 01:36

Browse Source Code for .Net Objects in SQL (Reflector.SQL2005Browser)

Saw a mention of this in the latest MSDN Magazine, you can download Reflector.SQL2005Browser and install it as an add-in for the well know Reflector tool (both are free). Point it at a server, pick a database, and you can browse through the deployed CLR...
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27 February 2008 01:52

Using TripIt for Travel Plans

Not a SQL related topic today. I first noticed Tripit on Joels Blog and so far it solves a problem I've had from time to time; making sense out of all the various email messages I get when I book a trip. Their implementation is simple, just forward...
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15 December 2007 01:35

Lists of Tools

I ran across this list of interesting tools by Scott Hanselman and there is some good stuff to look at it. I've always had a fondness for small special purpose (and mostly free) tools (software or woodworking!). I've made a note to start my own...
Posted by Andy Warren | 1 comment(s)
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