2012-08-31

Useful libraries and tools

This is one of the features I was missing from Community Server (and previous versions of Blogger): static pages. I've added two useful pages. The first one links to libraries that at some point I've used and recommend (currently only .NET and Silverlight, but eventually I might extend it to include JavaScript). It includes the license to know whether you can use on your project. The second one links to auxiliary tools that a developer should keep at hand.

2012-08-30

Unable to cast COM object of type...

Was the error that bugged me for three days, any time I tried to connect to a database in SQL Server Management Studio. Re-installing the Management Studio or the whole SQL Server wasn't working. Neither the workarounds for registering some specific DLLs, or event (gasp!) changing some GUIDs in the registry. What eventually fixed my problem was running the following command in the command prompt (Administrator Mode) and rebooting:

sfc /scannow

(SFC stands for System File Checker)

It's kind of weird that this issue has been around since 2005, officially reported to Microsoft in 2009 and it's still bugging people today (like me) using Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server 2008 R2. For the record here is where I found the fix.

Yet Another Hello World

Here is my third blog on software development. Unlike my previous instalments, "Labs" @ XAML-PT and "Labs 2" @ pontoNETpt, this is not dependent on any community, nor will be in Portuguese. Nor it will be called "Labs 3", just my name and where my work mostly is around - .NET. It's a better choice for SEO purposes :) In terms of content, this will mostly follow "Labs 2", basically logging my experiments and issue fixing, in case I might need it in the future, and in the hope that it might useful for someone else.
Regarding my previous blogging, XAML-PT is lost and pontoNETpt is currently down, although it is expected to be up again in the near future (here). My old entries on my personal blog regarding .NET are still available here (in Portuguese).