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 …

Google is kind of hiding this French guy's webpage (at least in America) so I thought I'd point it out. You can install Project Server 2010 and few other Office App Servers on Windowes 7 by making two changes: modify the setup\config.xml and adding a faux ServerManagerCMD.exe to your System32 directory.

To compile your …

Did you know that SharePoint supports list validation in addition to column validation? I've seen the option 100 times before but it never clicked before I actually needed to use it. In this case, I needed to make sure that anyone setting a task item Status column to Completed" was also filling setting the % …

So far as I can tell, Excel Services is not capable of automatic data refreshes when using SharePoint Lists as a data source. If you're looking for this functionality, you have two choices: PowerPivot (best) or scheduled client-side data refreshing (ghetto).

In order for Excel Services to communicate with other data …

Okay, I've had to call Helpdesk an embarrassing 8 times today because my PowerPivot upgrade is going horribly wrong and locking out my AD account that, admittedly, I use as a "service" account. I'm really left with no choice -- I'm only granted one account on this network. Restrictive networks are so …

Whether you use a Maintenance Cleanup Task as part of a SQL 2005 or 2008 Maintenance Plan, or script out your own cleanup t-SQL, you are probably using the xp_delete_file extended procedure. For quite a while, I've occasionally come across old TLog or backup files that were missed. Without questioning it, I would clean …

I really thought making SharePoint Lists into pretty graphs and charts in SharePoint would be far more straightforward than it's turned out to be. Recently, I was given a project where I had to do just that and while I read through about 30 SharePoint BI books, none really gave a straight answer on which of the various …

Recently, while using Excel Services to access PivotCharts and PivotTables within Excel Web Viewer Web Parts and PerformancePart Dashboards, I encountered vertical and horizontal scrollbars that would not go away, no matter how much I tried resizing. …