Moving back to Windows
After a long abstinence from the Windows platform as main OS, I have finally decided it is time to see the light and get with the masses. Windows Vista/7/2008 is the best OS out there, and neither Linux nor Mac OS X can touch it.
I have used various distro's of Linux for 2 years as primary OS, and got tired of the constant frustrations in having to pick from thousands of different choices. To not have a single company to blame for problems. To not have one single entity to hate when things go south. To have constant updates irritating the life out of me. I mean, if you have to choose between installing 10 patches in one month, or one large patch once every 3 years - which would you pick?
Then I went onwards to Mac OS X - and what a bummer. Even this guy claims Windows is better as it is cheaper than a Mac. I paid $9500 for my Mac Pro, compare that to the $2800 I paid for my super duper PC that (almost) outruns the Mac Pro. I paid $3800 for my MacBook Pro 17" Unibody, compare that with $699 for a 17" PC notebook. Steve Jobs is stealing our money. Why pay triple for some flashy junk when you can get solid compatible hardware for a third of the price?
Awesome! The world is melting!
Uptime of client's machine
I have created a web based e-commerce site for a client a while ago. Was quite impressed to notice today that machine I have built using Gentoo linux and JBoss for the AS has been running for more than 500 days now:
dXrTle ~ # uptime
17:45:02 up 503 days, 1:36, 1 user, load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.00
SQL Server 2005 Maintenance plan fails with "Failed:(0) Alter failed for Server 'servername'."
One thing you'll learn (if you have not already) is that SQL Server 2005's Maintenance Plans (which are actually SSIS workflows executed by SQL Server Agent Service) do NOT provide useful error information. I had to set up a script for a customer but spent my (very) early morning tearing out all the hair on my ageing head.
See, I got this from SQL Server History: Failed:(0) Alter failed for Server 'servername'. If that rings a bell for you then congratulations. It did not for me.
Today I stumbled upon the solution - thanks to a guy named Brent_Dorsey from sqlug.be: