I recently worked on a project for my employer, Insource Technology, to develop a corporate blog. As the project progressed we ran into an interesting problem. An author would upload a .docx file to the site without an issue. When the file was downloaded it would not download as a .docx file but as a .zip file. When the .zip file was extracted the contents showed the XML structure of the .docx file but the file was not readable by Microsoft Word.

Background

Microsoft’s XML Document Format

With the release of Office 2007, Microsoft released a new file format based on XML. Microsoft dubbed this new file format Open XML and claimed many tangible advantages including smaller file size, improved privacy control and better integration. A full list of extensions and more in-depth information on the Open XML format can be found here

MIME File Types

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an internet standard designed to identify the type of media content served by a web browser. The MIME types are used to help web browsers understand how to handle file types presented by a web browser or email application. Some of these MIME file types are set up by default to be interpreted correctly by the server. On some servers the .docx filetype is not set up by default.

Solution

Serving Office 2007 documents from an Apache Web Server

If you are running a blog on an apache web server you will need to add the following code to a .htaccess file in the root directory of your blog site. If you already have a .htaccess file you can add this to that file. No restart of the apache server is required.

application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document docx application/vnd.ms-word.document.macroEnabled.12 docm application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.template dotx application/vnd.ms-word.template.macroEnabled.12 dotm application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet xlsx application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.macroEnabled.12 xlsm application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.template xltx application/vnd.ms-excel.template.macroEnabled.12 xltm application/vnd.ms-excel.sheet.binary.macroEnabled.12 xlsb application/vnd.ms-excel.addin.macroEnabled.12 xlam application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.presentation pptx application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.presentation.macroEnabled.12 pptm application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slideshow ppsx application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slideshow.macroEnabled.12 ppsm application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.template potx application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.template.macroEnabled.12 potm application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.addin.macroEnabled.12 ppam application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.presentationml.slide sldx application/vnd.ms-powerpoint.slide.macroEnabled.12 sldm application/vnd.ms-officetheme thmx application/onenote onetoc application/onenote onetoc2 application/onenote onetmp application/onenote onepkg

Serving Office 2007 document from and IIS Web Server

It is not necessary to add the MIME file types to versions of IIS 7.0 or greater. Microsoft’s Technet has a full article outlining the process to Register the 2007 Office system file format MIME types on servers. This article includes how to add the MIME file types to IIS 6.x web servers.

As Cochair of the planning committee I am very pleased to announce that we are officially having a SQLSaturday in Houston. The event will be on January 29th, 2011 at the Bammel Church of Christ.

Co Chairs

Jonathan Gardner (Blog|Twitter)

Malik Al-Amin (Blog|Twitter)

Nancy Hidy Wilson (Twitter)

Information

We have created a Twitter account @SQLSatHou to distribute information. Please use the hastag #SQLSat57 when discussing the event and it will show up on the official SQLSaturday site.

The official SQLSaturday #57, Houston website is here.

Volunteers

We are always looking for people to help out. On the registration page there is a section to volunteer. I would highly encourage everyone to do this. While my motives are a bit selfish, it is really a great way to network with other volunteers and give back. If that is not enough, check out David’s Post on Five Reasons You Should Volunteer with Your Local SQL User Group and Host a SQL Saturday

Hope to see you there!

Previously we discussed how to use the Database Deployment feature in Visual Studio 2010. There are two options to deploy a database project. The first is to have Visual Studio deploy the scripts automatically. The second is to have Visual Studio build a deployment script that can be run via SQL Server Management Studio or SQLCMD. Running a Visual Studio generated deployment script in Management Studio is not as strait forward as it would seem.

When Visual Studio connects to a database and runs its deployment script, it does so via SQLCMD. This is seamless when a user wants to deploy his project directly through VS2010. When VS2010 creates a deployment script, it generates a script that contains SQLCMD Variables.

What are SQLCMD Variables

SQLCMD Variables are simply scripting variables that give a script more flexibility. The example in the Books Online is when a script is developed to be run agains multiple servers, scripting variables are used. Setting a scripting variable would allow the query to be run agains each server without the need to modify the query. Other example of SQLCMD variables and the full syntax are available in the Books Online article mentioned above

Running SSMS with SQLCMD Variables

The .sql script that is generated by VS2010 contains SQLCMD variables. Trying to run this via SSMS will generate “Incorrect syntax near ‘:’” errors. Queries that contain SQLCMD variables can be run through SSMS by turning on the ‘Run with SQLCMD’ option. This option can be found in the Query menu as ‘SQLCMD Mode’. This menu item is only visible if a query window is open and selected and allow queries that contain SQLCMD variables to be run in SSMS.

When the ‘Run with SQLCMD’ is enabled the scripting variables will be highlighted in grey by default. This color can be modified in the Fonts and Colors section of the options screen.

In previous articles we discussed how database professionals could use the features in Visual Studio 2010. During the video I demonstrated with a test project. Since then I have been working to migrate my DBA database project into Visual Studio 2010. From the beginning I ran into issues. This was a very discouraging start to using Visual Studio 2010 for my projects. There was a very simple fix and now we are moving right along.

One of the scripts that I deploy to all of my servers is Adam Machanic’s (Blog|Twitter) WhoIsActive. I created a stored procedure and saved the script. A few seconds later I saw 84 warnings show up on the Error List. Something was amiss. I have this script deployed into most of my environment and it works like a charm. It was time to do a little research.

The warnings all seemed to be due to some sort of missing reference. The WhoIsActive script, like many DBA scripts, uses the [master] database heavily. Visual Studio is parsing through the script and can’t find any of the items that the script is trying to reference, so it throws a warning. The good news is that there is a very simple fix.

Adding a Reference to master.dbschema

Database projects are designed to be self contained. When creating a database project, scripts typically will reference items within the same project. Some scripts, however, will reference other database items. In this case, the [master] database is referenced. The master.dbschema file is not included in every project for performance reasons. It contains a large number of objects that are unnecessary for many projects.

The default installation of Visual Studio 2010 includes dbschema for both the [master] and [msdb] databases. There are separate schema SQL Server 2005 and 2008. These files are located in the Visual Studio installation directory in the Extensions folder. I am working on a SQL 2008 project so I will use the following folder:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VSTSDB\Extensions\SqlServer\2008\DBSchemas

To add the database reference right click on the References folder in the Solutions Explorer and select Add Database Reference. This will open the Add Database Reference window. Add the master.dbschema by selecting browse and navigating to the folder that contains the appropriate schema for your project. In my case, it was the folder listed above. I accepted the defaults and clicked OK. Saving the project will cause Visual Studio to parse the code again and resolve the reference errors.

If no other references have been added, it can also be added from the References tab of the Project Properties page. If the project already contains references this tab will show a list of the current references and no additional references can be added.

We are working up more articles and videos about Visual Studio 2010 and its features for Database professionals. Do you have a specific topic you would like us to cover? We would love to hear from you.

I have been exploring some of the features of Visual Studio 2010 that are useful to DBAs and Database Developers. Today’s topic is Database Deployment. Software developers have been using the deployment tools in Visual Studio for some time, however, the addition of database deployment gives database professionals the ability to systematically deploy their projects to a multiple environments.

Every enviornment can be configured to have a different configuration. For example, in my development environment I tell VS2010 to build the solution script and then deploy it to the server. In my production environment I tightly control what and when scripts are deployed to the database. When I am building the solution for my production environment I configure VS2010 to build the deployment script and put it into a folder. This allows me to schedule the script to go into production when I choose.

We are going to walk through setting up a database project and configuring the project for deployment. Open or create a database project. Right click on the top of the project in the solution explorer, at the top of the explorer tree. Select ‘Properties’ from the menu. This will open the project properties window. The deploy tab of the project properties will allow us to configure the deploy settings.

There are three main settings that we will focus on. The first is the configuration. Configuration is the setting that allows us to change the behavior for different environments. In this example project I have set the configuration to be debug. The debug configuration is my test environment and where I want to allow VS2010 to automatically deploy the solution to the server automatically.

The second setting we are going to look at is the ‘Deploy Action’. The default setting is ‘Create Deployment Script (.sql). Leaving this set on the default means that a deployment .sql script will be crated but not deployed to my database. This gives database professionals the flexibility to deploy the script via SSMS, scheduled job, etc. In the case of my test environment I want to use ‘Create a deployment script (.sql) and deploy to the database’. This will run the deployment script against my test environment every time I select deploy from the build menu.

The final setting that I want to highlight is the Target Connection Setting. This can be different with each configuration setting allowing me to connect to different SQL Servers and/or different databases for the environment I am deploying to.

What have your experiences with deployment in Visual Studio 2010. We would love to hear about them.

This weekend I was in Dallas, TX with Nancy Wilson (Twitter) and Malik Al-Amin (Twitter) form the Houston Area SQL Server Users Group volunteering at SQLSaturday 35. It gave us a unique perspective and taught us some very valuable lessons for when we put on SQLSaturday in Houston.

I wanted to give a big thanks to the North Texas SQL Server Users Group, all of the presenters, and volunteers to helped make this event a success. The general consensus that I heard was that everyone took something away from the event that they were going to be able to use.

Denny Cherry (Blog|Twitter) had a great write up about SQL Saturday #33. I am going to follow a similar format for this post.

The Good

Size

I was surprised by the number of people that were registered to attend. 500 people were registered and there was a wait list for the event. The event was limited to 500 people because that would exceed the fire code for the building. In the end, everyone who showed up was able to get into the event. I don’t know the official attendance number but the last number I heard was near 400. There were 42 sessions across 7 rooms with some extra sponsor sessions held during the lunch break.

Food

I ate breakfast at the hotel as I didn’t know that there was going to be breakfast at the event. I didn’t see it mentioned but to be honest that may have been an err on my part. I didn’t read all of the latest event communication so there is a large possibility that I missed the announcement. I didn’t hear anyone complaining about the food, especially with the line for Paciugo Gelato wrapping around the entire building.

Location

SQLSaturday 35 was held at the Region 10 Education Services Center in Richardson, TX. It turned out to be a great place to hold SQLSaturday as it was designed for just such a training event. As a matter of fact, the I like it so much I am going to contact the Region 4 Education Services Center in Houston to see if we can hold a SQL Saturday there soon.

The hotel was very close to the event, approximately 2 blocks. This would be just a short walk, but with temperatures over 90 degrees I don’t think anyone did. I did not hear of anyone that attended the event from out of town say that they were staying somewhere else. What I did hear is that some people, including me, tried to check into the wrong hotel as there are two Courtyard by Marriott locations in Richardson. Instead of looking at my confirmation I relied on Google Maps to tell me where to go. Google Maps #fail.

The Could be Better

The Raffle

The prizes that were give away were fantastic. It was no secret that I wanted the iPad that was being raffled off, I wanted it bad. Execution of raffles can be problematic. The prizes displayed/discussed, the number drawn, and the recipient then had to come down to the same person that called the number out to claim their prize all while the audience clapped after every drawing. This causes prize distribution to be lengthy, hence the creation of the t-shirt canon.

I am not suggesting I have ultimate raffle solution but some great ideas were thrown around at the after party that may have merit for further evaluation.

The After Party

The location for the after party was at the same location as the speaker’s dinner the night before. The room was partitioned off from the rest of the building so it was essentially a private room just for us. There was really no advertising of the after party until the raffle at the end of the day when everyone was trying to file out of the room.

The after party can be the most valuable of the entire event. The after party is where attendees can network and talk with the speakers and volunteers, many times in a one on one conversation. Advertisement of the after party should have been throughout the course of the event.

Overall

I would say that this event was a huge success. The issues mentioned above are really secondary to the main goal of providing a day of SQL training. The team from the North Texas SQL Server Users Group really did a fantastic job putting on the event and I am looking forward to attending again when they have the next one.

I am working with Malik Al-Amin (Twitter) to put on a SQL Saturday in Houston. You can follow either of us on Twitter for more details or you can follow the Twitter account that I have set up for the event SQLSatHou.

Find a SQL Saturday event near you and get involved with your local user groups.

I spent most of last week in Atlanta attending Microsoft Convergence 2010. Convergence is a event focused on Microsoft’s Dynamics line of business products, ERP platforms and CRM. It is the only Dynamics event where customers, partners, and the Microsoft team are all together in one location to discuss their products.

Overall

There were two themes that permeated the entire conference, Microsoft Azure and Web Services. During one of the general sessions it was mentioned that currently 70% of the Dynamics development team is focused on cloud based services and in 2011 that number would climb to 90%. Microsoft’s investment in cloud services gives greater flexibility in the architecture of the infrastructure that runs the Dynamics products. The extension into the cloud is made possible through the implementation of web services. Dynamics web services running on Azure would allow for cloud based services to safely and securely connect to a back-end Dynamics platform without the need for a complex server architecture. Cloud based web services would allow for a central point of communication for external services at the same time it would limit the exposure of any back end system by limiting the external communication to one point, Azure, instead of many different services.

The conference was a huge success, however, there was a glaring need for deep technical tracks during the event. I attended 2 SQL events that were marked as “400 Level” technical classes and the material presented defiantly not what I would consider 400 Level material. I had my opinion confirmed when I discussed the material with the SQL community via Twitter. An opportunity was missed for training and knowledge sharing between developers, DBAs, the some of Microsoft’s technical staff.

This was the first year that the User Groups played a large role at the conference. These groups were not closed to only users so partners and Microsoft employees were encouraged to attend. These turned out to be not only the most productive parts of the conference for everyone. Users were able to discuss issues and features directly with the product team that Microsoft really needs to address. Partners were able to add great advice on topics like add-ons and upgrading.

Everyone that deals with Microsoft’s dynamics products would gain valuable insight and knowledge from attending the convergence event. There was not a partner, user, or Microsoft employee that I spoke with that did not find the event worth attending. I would highly recommend that anyone involved with a Dynamics product try to make it to Convergence 2011.

If you attended Convergence 2010 we would love to hear about your experience.

As an audiophile I am constantly listening to music, everything from Classical and Jazz to Metal and Punk. The ear buds that came with my iPhone work when you are in a pinch but they just don’t to the music justice. I spend a lot of time on the road and in noisy cube farms so I started researching noise canceling headphones. I narrowed my selection down to two choices, Beats by Dr. Dre Studio Headphones and Bose QuiteComfort 15. I went with the Beats by Dr. Dre and could not be happier with my choice

Yesterday was day one at Convergence 2010 and it turned out to be a good one. The event, so far, has been well managed and attendance is strong. During the keynote in the morning it was announced that there are over of 8900 users, partners, ISVs, and Microsoft employees in attendance.

The keynote, as expected, featured some of the latest and greatest the Dynamics team has to offer. Dynamics GP 2010 was announced with some much needed improvements to BI and tighter integration with CRM and CRM Online.

The demo included some interesting integration between CRM and social media. Native functionality exists to define socially driven searches and IE accelerators that can push information to generate knowledge base articles. While the demo was limited it shows that the power of social media is being seen and embraced by Microsoft.

The concurrent and interactive sessions covered relevant topics and some were offered more than one time during the course of the conference. This is great when two topics of interest are presented at the same time slot.

Overall

So far Convergence 2010 has been a great experience. If you are a user or a partner of any of the Dynamics line of products I would suggest not missing the next one.

The Good

Staff/Attendants are knowledgeable and helpful. I have never been to a conference that had so may attendants. They seemed to be everywhere to help attendees find their way around the conference center.

The event was spread out over lots of real estate. While I also mentioned this in the ‘bad’ section I think it is a good thing. I sit behind a desk for too much of my life so some walking is good for me.

The Bad

The food. Breakfast and lunch were terrible. With as much as we paid for this conference this should have been much better. That being said I can only imagine that feeding 8900 people at one time is very difficult.

To handle the numbers of people and small sessions it would be expected that the location would have to be huge. The layout just requires a lot of walking back and forth up and down escalators. The dining area, expo center and large presentation room are located far away from the breakout rooms.

The #EpicFail

Wireless at the convention center is $75 per week. Are you kidding me! That would pay for 2 months of my 12M connection at home. Arrangements should have been made for free wireless access throughout the convention center.

I have been evaluating Visual Studio 2010′s usefulness to the DBA and the Developer over the past few weeks(See: What Features Visual Studio 2010 Offers DBAs and Database Devs).  While I work with the applicaiton I find myself spending a lot of time over on Zain Naboulsi’s blog (Blog | Twitter).  It is a great resource for finding info about Tips and Tricks for VS 2010.  While all of the posts are helpful, below are the items that I find myself using often.

Tracking Changes in the Editor – This allows me to quickly see what I have changed and/or what has not been saved.

Pasting a Single Selection Into a Box Selection

Comment and Uncomment Code – This has been around in SSMS for a while and I use it all the time.  The same holds true for VS2010.

What Tips and Tricks have you found?  We would love to hear from you about how you are using VS2010.