I recently discovered NoMachine's NX while looking for an easy way to encrypt VNC. NX, if you aren't familiar with it, is generally a PITA to setup, but well worth the pain (on Linux anyway). All traffic goes over SSH and while the performance isn't as great as Windows' RDP, it's faster and more secure than VNC. …

Need to uninstall xquartz but keep running into the following error?

macbook:~ clem$ sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchAgents/org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist launchctl: Error unloading: org.macosforge.xquartz.startx
For whatever reason, you have to run this particular unload as a regular user and not as root …

Recently, a colleague requested that I perform a backup of a development site collection at https://sp.ad.local and restore it to the test site collection https://test.ad.local/sites/sp.

The test site collection was one of two site collections on the test.ad.local web app. It's been a while since I've done anything in …

I've known about SQL Database Snapshots for a while, but never really took the time to use the feature.  Lately, I've gotten into mirroring again and decided to play around with Database Snapshots.  I should clarify at this point that I'm speaking about the native SQL snapshot capabilities, and not a filer technology …

It appears Apple changed the way NAT works, starting in Lion and this upset a lot of people. Apparently, nat would just stop working for some folks after they upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard.

Finding really in-depth information about Apple's NAT implementation is surprisingly hard. While attempting to figure out how …

I recently modified my Parallels DHCP settings because I'm really particular about the internal subnets I work with in the lab (192.168 is the ugliest subnet ever). Once I modified the file at /Library/Preferences/VMware\ Fusion/networking (OS X) my Parallels Desktop erred out and said

Interface vmnet1 is not present. …

Each time I start a new contract, the first thing I do is search for all SQL Servers across any network/subnet to which I have access. While the documentation I get is usually paltry or non-existent. When it does exist, it's usually only for the production SQL Servers. Sometimes, most production SQL Servers aren't even …

I recently assisted in migrating a very large system from SQL Server 2005 SP3 to SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1.  The actual migration of the database went off without a hitch, but we soon encountered an odd error with the application querying a view over a linked server.

The application was web-based and began throwing an …

This setup is so unlikely, I doubt anyone on the 'net will be looking for this solution but: if you're an eBook loving Windows developer who uses a Macbook Pro for your primary workstation, this may appeal to you.

My Macbook Pro runs Windows 7 within Parallels. It's fast and slick and I <3 it. My eBook reader of …

Relatively linking to local documents is much simpler you'd expect. Just save the Excel file and the documents in the same directory and =HYPERLINK(filename,filename). No need for "file://" or any fancy hyperlinking. This method works anywhere -- your local drive, a CD-ROM drive, USB stick, or a networked …