Mark Brown's Blog

TFS, Visual Studio, SQL Server, BizTalk, SharePoint, .Net, and more ...

Checking MSMQ message queue count with C#

I noticed the other day a team member was having exceptions being thrown every second when idle in a...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 01/05/2012

How to build a Virtual Image with just a Win 2k8 setup disk ISO

I don't have to do this often but when I do I occasionally forget the steps. For those wanting to...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 01/28/2011

Online Help with Download Content Fails on Visual Studio 2010

If you first choose online help then go into Help -> Manage Help Settings, then choose Install...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 08/18/2010

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Current Version: 10.0.30319.1 (RTM) .Net 4.0 Current: 4.0.30319 (RTM)...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 07/09/2010

Executing logic between PreRender and PreRenderComplete Asyncronously

Most of you are familar with the PageAsyncTask class...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 02/09/2010

VS2010 Guidance now published!

After a long journey, the work I did along with others has finally paid off. The VS2010 Guidance is...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 01/14/2010

Fewer smaller .Net DLLs vs less large DLLs

Generally speaking it is better to have less large DLLs versus many smaller DLLs for the following...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 12/28/2009

Visual Studio and .Net Tutorials and Training Videos

A friend asked about some sites to learn about Visual Studio and programming. There is a lot of...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 11/10/2009

Visual Studio Tutorials and Training Videos

A friend asked about some sites to learn about Visual Studio and programming. There is a lot of...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 11/10/2009

Steps to add Developer Tools to Send To folder

Steps to add programs to Send to folder Navigate to your SendTo folder (Windows XP location is...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 10/09/2009

TFS Extras Article Created

Started a article that will contain lots of free/commerical add-ons and website articles for TFS....

Author: MarkABrown Date: 10/01/2009

Team Foundation Server Extras

TFS is one of the greatest development productivity tools I have seen in a long time from Microsoft....

Author: MarkABrown Date: 10/01/2009

Free Telerik TFS Manager and Dashboard

As a Microsoft VSTS ranger, I come across some interesting TFS add-ons on occasion. The recently...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 10/01/2009

How to close window (self) without prompting in IE6 and IE7

ScenarioWeb application wants to pop-up a window as a certain size, chromeless, etc. However doesn't...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 08/25/2009

How to autoresize parent frame height from child frame

ScenarioA parent document contains a frame that loads a file which content is dynamic and you want...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/12/2009

How to access SQL Server on Windows through a secure connection from Perl on Linux

Scenario Have some perl code that wants to access Microsoft SQL Server 2005. The SQL Server is...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/04/2009

Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Remote Desktop

Scenario Download your favorite image (or create one) and you want to exchange files with the guest...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 05/28/2009

Ever tried to install a printer by just giving users a link? Well here is a small snippet of one way...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 02/13/2009

Using Visual Studio with IIS7 on Vista and Win 7

For those interested in installing VSTS and using with IIS7 on Vista (and possible with Win 7) you...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 02/10/2009

How to do logic OR AND NOT across rows in SQL

Scenario You have a normalized table that has values in rows. Let's take an example that has a...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 12/15/2008

Custom Security and SQL Job with SSIS Script Task

Scenario Recently I ran into a security issue that has a simple fix. Here is the situation: SSIS...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 11/06/2008

Optimizing queries with joins and over statements in SQL 2005

I was working on a common scenario and found an interesting side effect. Applications typically have...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 07/29/2008

SQL Server 2005 UNPIVOT Command - changings columns to rows (normalizing)

ScenarioA table that contains several columns that you need to take and change into rows in order to...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/16/2008

TFS History via command line for a date range

I know several people have blogged about this and it is available in the help files somewhat. I...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 04/29/2008

How to use or setup Sharepoint or Reporting Services on a separate port or machine with TFS

You can use the following to move your sharepoint location on your existing TFS Sharepoint sites or...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 04/16/2008

How to write SQL to get a record to process in a cluster of processing computers

Working with a friend at work, we were discussing how to create some SQL to go after records in a...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 03/01/2008

How to backup and truncate all log files in a database

Some things to consider ... Make sure you can recover your server and database prior to issuing...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 01/26/2008

Unable to delete or disable SQL Server job due to error regarding MSX server

Have you ever run across this error before when trying to delete or disable a SQL server job (or...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 01/26/2008

SOAP Toolkit + Vista + Excel 2007 + Call Web Services = Impossible

Well I wouldn't say impossible ... just not supported. I had a conversation with a client that asked...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 01/02/2008

SQL Server 2005 SP2 - Access Denied on MSSQLData directory

This was a strange occurance I found recently. If you encounter the error SQL Server Setup failed to...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 10/22/2007

Issue with SSIS Package calling stored procedure OUTPUT datetime parameter type

Symptom The incoming tabular data stream (TDS) remote procedure call (RPC) protocol stream is...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 10/18/2007

SQL Server 2005 Job, SSIS Step, Data Sources Access Denied

This particular issue was interesting. I was troubleshooting an issue where an individual had rights...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 10/14/2007

Selecting the Most Current Record in a table (SQL2000 and 2005 examples)

My friend Alfredo helped with some SQL code and I thought it would be interesting to share. I was...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 09/19/2007

Secure SSIS step execution when running as a SQL Job

Here is the scenario: SQL Agent account (NETWORK SERVICE or some DOMAIN ACCOUNT) does not have...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 07/23/2007

Programatic way to determine space used on all database tables

Here is one way I have found in order to get all tables space used. Effectively it queries the...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 07/17/2007

Ensure best Excel export formating from SQL Server Reporting Services

When designing reports it is important to be aware that the report may be exported to Excel. This is...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/28/2007

Launch VPC without VPC Console via command line

Ever wanted to launch a VPC without going through the console? You can through the command-line:...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/21/2007

Login Failed for User '' - SQL Server

Periodically, I have seen issues with connecting to a remote SQL Server from SQL Server Management...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/21/2007

eSCRUM template from Microsoft Released

Microsoft eScrum Version 1.0eScrum is a Web-based, end-to-end project management tool for Scrum...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/14/2007

Using MSSCCI Provider and TFS Proxy Server

I was at TechEd and was involved in a conversation that thought the MSSCCI provider did not work...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/11/2007

Team Foundation Server and Project Server 2007 Connector Launched

My good friend Lenny (and fellow VSTS Ranger) released the Project Server 2007 Connector to TFS. I...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/11/2007

Official: Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008

Well, I just got back from TechEd and WOW! lots of things happening. Along with the great sessions...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 06/11/2007

Microsoft Remote Desktop Management Tool

Although this has been out for a while, I got reminded recently about a tool from Microsoft that...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 05/22/2007

How to determine schema definitions of Stored Procedures in .Net

Here is some code to get an idea. Note that if a stored procedure sends back a temp table this does...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 03/06/2007

ASP.NET 2.0 Web Part vs Sharepoint 2007 Web Parts

So what is the deal with ASP.NET web parts and SharePoint web parts? Well, glad you asked. I am not...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 02/28/2007

Team Foundation Server Power Tools v1.2 Released

Team Foundation Server is happy to announce the release of version 1.2 of Team Foundation Power...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 02/21/2007

SQL Server 2005 SP2 is now available

For those anxiously awaiting, SQL Server 2005 SP2 is now available at...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 02/20/2007

Sending Excel 97/XP/2000/2003/2007 Output from ASP.NET 2.0

I know there are several articles on the internet describing varous methods to send excel output...

Author: MarkABrown Date: 02/20/2007

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