Computer Plumber

Quickly Restore a SQL Server Database

If you frequently need to restore other peoples DB’s for testing here is a quick way to do so in Microsoft Sql Server.

1. Open your Sql Server manager
2. Create a new database (note the names and locations of the created files)
3. Select the newly created DB and select Restore.
4. Select from Device and choose the backup file to restore.
5. Make sure you are overwriting the new database you created, usually quite apparent, look at the path.
6. Check the log file and database name, modify where needed to the new database and log files (usually under logical name)
7. Hopefully once set, you can restore the database, proceed hopefully, if not check the error and modify accordingly.
8. Now you likely need to take ownership of the DB, run the following on the newly restored database to give it sa ownership:

   exec sp_changedbowner 'sa','true'

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VMware Fusion cannot connect to the virtual machine

After having a Mac Book pro crash and subsequently get repaired with a new logic board, we found that the virtual machines on the computer would not start at all. This problem started happening just before the computer fatally crashed before needing repair, but persisted after the logic board was replaced. The exact error VMware Fusion 2 gave us was, “Make sure you have rights to run the program and to access all directories it uses and rights to access all directories for temporary files”. Many solutions to this problem involve removing and reinstalling VMware Fusion.

After uninstalling, deleting the remaining files and rebooting then reinstalling the latest version a few times (even as different users) we found that we had the exact same problem. We even tried reinstalling again using an older version of Fusion (version 1). We ran the verify and repair on both the disk and permissions with no success either.

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Easy Way to Change Ubuntu Usernames

If you want to change your Ubuntu user name, a very fast way to do so is via the command line.

Just type the following:

sudo usermod -l newname currentname

For more options, just type man usermod

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WMV Playback on MAC

There are many options for what to use to play WMV files on OS X. The first of these is Flip4Mac which is a plugin for Quicktime. With Windows Media® Components for QuickTime, by Flip4Mac™, you can play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a Web browser. Here are 2 links
Link #1
Link #2
cellent option is VLC player for MAC (this is my favourite media player):
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Rails and Microsoft Sql Server

So you want to connect your rails application to Microsoft SQL Server. The following instructions will take you through setting this up quite simply. This setup is on a a Ubuntu 8.04 server connecting to SQL Server 2000 (we will use the Northwind sample database). The first thing you need to do is install the following gems:

$ gem install dbi --version 0.4.0
$ gem install dbd-odbc --version 0.2.4
$ gem install rails-sqlserver-2000-2005-adapter -s http://gems.github.com

More info can be found on the sqlserver adapter gem development page. This is just the first step. Read the rest of this entry »