I posted some listing on eBay to generate a little cash to pay for some gifts for people at Christmas; take a look:

• Metroid Prime Hunters for Nintendo DS
• Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam for Nintendo DS
• Leadtek WinFast PX7800 GT TDH Extreme PCI Express Graphics card

I feel dirty posting links to my eBay listing on my blog, but fuck it. Clicky please!

Shameless plug to promote voting… click here.

Credits to Sion Edwards for this find

So I joined the revolution into the new internet fad Twitter recently, and although I’m having trouble with some bugs (I think…) I’m having fun reading other people’s profiles.
My page is http://twitter.com/Codesleuth – followers welcome

Look at any news network, paper, or blog roll, and you will find comments that show there is no real need for this particular piece of news to be escalated this far.

I loved this Daily Show video, which summarises all that is stupid about the media:

If you’re looking for information, go to Effect Measure. Otherwise, laugh it off like the rest of us.

I’ve been hack-attacking the site with some random S/N codes and found the following versions of ROMs available:

ROM: v2.03
Radio: v52.51.25.26
Released: 2009-02-27

• Europe
• Dutch
• French

If anyone is brave enough to test these versions and overwrite their Orange branded ROM, please let me know.

Fair enough; you would expect that. And the solution is to obviously set them to auto start once virtual server has booted and the service is running. Here are the steps to get the whole thing working:

1. Create a user account

The best way to tackle this step is to create a local user account that is dedicated to automating virtual machines. This user account should not be given any permissions on the server (preferably not even ‘Allow log on locally‘ rights but unfortunately when I tested this it failed to start the VMs) and should be given a strong password. See below:

Create the Local User account

2. Apply permissions to virtual machines

Once you have your user account created and ready, you must give it permissions to read, write, and modify your virtual machine’s .VHD and .VMC files. When I did this, I added these permissions to my root virtual machines folder to allow all virtual machines to inherit the permissions and therefore start automatically from this account. See below:

Applying permissions to the virtual machines folder

3. Apply permissions to virtual network configuration files

In order to access the virtual networks (and physical networks!) permissions need to be added to read, write, and modify the .VNC files that represent each network available to the VM. You can find these configuration files (by default) in “C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Shared Virtual Networks”, then add the permissions as shown:

Applying virtual network permissions to the Shared Networks folder

4. Set the virtual machine to automatically start using the new user account

Head on over to your Virtual Server administration page and select Edit Configuration for the virtual machine you wish to automate. If the virtual machine is currently running, you must ensure it is fully stopped before setting it to automatically start (the site will prevent you from changing any settings):

Edit configuration for the virtual machine

Next select the General properties link to go to the required section to add automation for the virtual machine:

General properties for the virtual machine

You should be presented with the following page, which is pretty self-explanitory:

The General properties page for a virtual machine

Tick Run virtual machine under the following user account and enter the user account you created under User name and Password in the form of <Server>\<Account> (so in my example it is XAVIER\LocalVSUser) then select what conditions you wish the server to be started from, and what type of delay you would like to give before it starts. I usually give each VM a 360 second delay to allow adequate time for other services to finish loading before the Virtual Server takes over the system.

The final step to automate virtual machines

Done!

This should be all you need to set the virtual machine to automatically start. One thing to remember is that most problems that arise from being unable to run or use a virtual machine when set to automatically start come from permissions. Extra help is available from Microsoft here: Modifying general virtual machine properties.

Have a look at their blog I hosted for them to get more details on the property.

http://kendiane.codesleuth.co.uk/?p=19

Just a quick note to spread the word of the new HTC Touch Diamond ROM update for Orange branded phones, and that it can be obtained from this post. This new update promises to improve performance, battery life, and fix some bugs some of us may have noticed while using the device.

A word of warning: completely backup your phone before applying this update as it will wipe it clean.

Direct link to download: ROM Update Utility

SELECT @ID = ID FROM tblTable WHERE nvhSomeText = 'match'

IF @ID IS NULL
INSERT INTO tblTable (nvhSomeText, intSomeNumber) VALUES ('match', 10)
ELSE
UPDATE tblTable SET nvhSomeValue = 10 WHERE ID = @ID

Imagine this section of T-SQL being part of a stored procedure that is executed an insanely large amount of times per second by multiple different users. There is the possibility that two or more executing instances of the stored procedure both find @ID to be NULL at the same time (a race condition), and then both add the same record which should not happen due to business logic or whatever. Of course, if you have checks on your tblTable this may prevent a catastrophe, but you still should prevent that check being necessary in the first place (at least in this case).
The trick to solving the race condition here is to use table hints such as UPDCHECK or HOLDLOCK within a transaction as follows:

BEGIN TRAN

SELECT @ID = ID FROM tblTable WITH (UPDCHECK, HOLDLOCK) WHERE nvhSomeText = 'match'

IF @ID IS NULL
INSERT INTO tblTable (nvhSomeText, intSomeNumber) VALUES ('match', 10)
ELSE
UPDATE tblTable SET nvhSomeValue = 10 WHERE ID = @ID

COMMIT

Placing the UPDLOCK within the SELECT statement forces a hold lock on the table specified before the WITH keyword. The official text for the use of UPDLOCK in the SQL Server 2008 Documentation is:

Specifies that update locks are to be taken and held until the transaction completes.

Placing a HOLDLOCK on a table simply specifies that the lock is to be held for only the table it was specified for, and that it should only exist for the current transaction (BEGIN TRAN -> COMMIT block). Official text is:

HOLDLOCK applies only to the table or view for which it is specified and only for the duration of the transaction defined by the statement that it is used in. HOLDLOCK cannot be used in a SELECT statement that includes the FOR BROWSE option.

Please review the site here for some extra information on the topic.

Boots Conditioning Nail Polish Remover Pads

Today I was planning to write a really long post about how I’m ‘oh so grateful’ that Obama has won the presidency election, and that many years ago I was assured by a friend that there would never be a black American president within my lifetime.

Instead, I wish to tell you about Boots Conditioning Nail Polish Remover Pads which you can buy in store and from their website.

Yesterday I finally bought a pack of these from my local Boots store to remove the black nail polish left over from our Saturday Halloween party. While sat at my desk, I was frantically attempting to both type and continue to remove the nail polish from my nails. A few minutes into this task I noticed my fingerprints were now shown very clearly on my keyboard keys – melted actually into the key.

There. Interesting? No? OK, go read the BBC News article on Obama’s win then!

Obama © Getty Images