Tech Tips, Tricks & Trivia

About a fortnight ago, Google highlighted on its official blog how "two clever Translate trends caught our eye—perhaps one of them will inspire you to come up with a fun Translate trick of your own." . Folks around the world were making fun remixes First, some creative folks translated strings of consonants into German to create a new beatboxing tool. The phrase “pv zk bschk” didn’t initially make much sense to us, but a quick listen got us nodding our heads along to the beat. Now it seems there’s a similar trend in Taiwan: using the spoken output of Google Translate as the vocals for self-composed songs or video spoofs. A few days ago there was an announcement on the Google Code blog that the Google Translate, Transliterate & ten other APIs will be deprecated. The Google Translate API will be shut off completely on December 1, 2011 and the reason is "substantial economic burden caused by extensive abuse" .   So what constitutes "fun Translate tricks&q

Tatkal train ticket reservation is a ray of hope for millions of Indians who prefer to commute by trains over other forms of travel even if they have to pay extra because the original reserved ticket quota has run out. The IRCTC website is possibly the best known site in India as it helps travellers avoid the long queues at the train reservation centers. It is also probably the most hated site as getting the more premium Tatkal ticket is a harrowing experience. ---   Update (13-Mar-2012): In an Economic Times  interview , the Head of  IRCTC, Rakesh Kumar Tandon informs that of the 8 lakh people who log on simultaneously between 8 am 8.10am, only 50,000 manage to get tickets! He attributes one customer-centric reason for the delay in completion of the Tatkal transaction to berth preference. It takes time for the system to find a particular berth. Going by this hint, a Lower berth is probably most preferred while going by experience, Side Upper is least preferred. So you could try y

Introduction to Visual Studio 2010 - Part 2  importantly covers IntelliTrace & Extensions. Some interesting facts about VS from the video course - You can debug a release build. Release folder can contain .pdb. PDB – Program Debug Database Deploy Release version of build. Depending on the third party libraries you are using, their licensing terms  may not allow you to deploy the Debug version. Build > Clean Solution throws away all the products of a prior Build. This will mean that the next build will be full build. Rather than doing a Clean Solution & then Build Solution, you can directly do a Rebuild Solution Look at Locals window after a breakpoint is hit for variable values. Use Watch window for specific variables DataTip dimensions can be modified   Ctrl + Datatip – for a transparent background, useful when you want to see code behind a datatip Pin a DataTip to see variable value change dynamically inside it.It can be dragged, unpinned or closed. Trivia: Coden

Recordings from TechEd , PDC , MIX events are all now archived on Channel9. These are great learning resources to keep abreast of all that's happening in the Microsoft Development world. Here are videos I have identified from Tech-Ed North America 2011 for weekend viewing over the coming weeks: Team Foundation Server for Everyone The Accidental Team Foundation Server Admin Understanding Your Systems with Architectural Discovery in Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Internet Information Services (IIS) 7.5 for Developers Pragmatic JavaScript,jQuery and AJAX with Microsoft ASP.NET Application Development with HTML5 HTML5 and CSS3 Techniques You Can Use Today Debugging Pesky HTML5 Websites with F12 in Windows Internet Explorer 9 Upgrading Your C# Programming Skills to Be a More Effective Developer Microsoft Visual Studio Tips and Tricks Demystifying Debugging with Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate and IntelliTrace Identify and Fix Performance Problems with Microsoft Visual Studi

Like last year , MVPs from all over India & a few from Sri Lanka & Australia converged in Hyderabad for the MVP Open Day event. I had a great time meeting & talking with some extremely smart & passionate MVPs & listening to presentations from visionaries & Product Team leaders at MS IDC. (click to view enlarged image)

Michael K. Campbell has shared some useful SQL Server goodies that are available online, in his article in DevProConnections. I picked the ones I liked - * Scripts - TechNet's Script Repository has a vast repository of scripts provided by Microsoft and by its users/customers that you can adapt for your own requirements. * Books - Red Gate Software which sells some great developer tools also publishes books. Some of them are available for free download in PDF format - SQL Server Stumpers Vol.5  Inside the SQL Server Query Optimizer  SQL Server Execution Plans   Mastering SQL Server Profiler SQL Server Statistics   The Red Gate Guide to SQL Server Team-based Development  Defensive Database Programming Confessions of an IT Manager SQL Server Tacklebox  How to Become an Exceptional DBA The Art of XSD  SQL Server Hardware The SysAdmin Handbook - The Best of Simple Talk  Brad's Sure Guide to SQL Server Maintenance Plans  Exchange 2010 - A Practica

Here is a summary of the 2h 38min duration Pluralsight SQL Azure course  - * Advantages of SQL Azure - Highly available Manageable Scalable Familiar – similar to SQL Server 2005 & 2008, but differences / limitations exist Maintained by MS IT * Some differences from standard SQL Server  - Data migration – SSIS, BCP, Scripts, SQL Azure Migration Wizard, System.Data.SqlClient.SqlBulkCopy; Restore not supported Transactions – possible in same DB instance only Collation applies only to Column & Expression level; Server, Database excluded Tables must have clustered index Supports most but not all of TSQL  * Candidate apps that can leverage SQL Azure - Require relational data model. Consider Windows Azure Table for other needs Easily partitioned data sets, 5 – 50 GB database All queries use one database. (Most Enterprise apps may need to access multiple DBs) Require high availability * Besides Memory, Time, Disk costs, Devs must also understand SQL Azure pri