Archive for January, 2010

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Upgrading SQL Server Express

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

During the maintenance of a Windows server it was decided that it was time to ditch SQL Server Express and migrate to SQL Server Workgroup Edition - mainly because the restrictions on database size and users were becoming an issue.

However, rather than proceeding to backing-up the database, uninstalling the Express version and then configuring the new installation of SQL Server from scratch, a little research proved suspicions that it would be possible to migrate through an upgrade procedure that would maintain the existing database and it configuration.

The procedure was simple enough - run setup.exe from the command line and include the switch SKUUPGRADE=1.  Of course, before we began we still created a backup of the database!

At first setup appears to run as normal, but later during the process you are able to select the database that is to be upgraded.  By following the installation wizard and waiting for installation to complete we were able to upgrade the SQL Server Express database to the Workgroup Edition.  We confirmed installation by checking the version of the database using SQL Server Management Studio.  After some security configuration in SQL Server Configuration Manager we found that users could immediately connect to the upgraded database without issue.

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Plesk - Deleting Emails Directly On The Server

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

If you find yourself needing to delete emails directly from your Plesk server rather than through your email client, the following information will prove useful.

Plesk-based servers are configured to use qmail as the mail server.

You can find mail in /var/qmail/mailnames/<domain>/<mailbox-name>/Maildir/

Within this directory you will find cur and new directories which contain the actual email files.

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More ‘My Recent Documents’ In Windows XP

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

PLEASE NOTE: The following tip involves making changes to the computer’s registry.  You should always make a backup of your registry before making any changes to it and should seek expert assistance if you are unsure of how to modify your registry.

Although the ‘My Recent Documents’ feature of the taskbar in Windows is really useful, when working with a lot of files, or if I want to open a file from a few days ago, the file can have disappeared from the list.  After a little googling I found this handy tip that lets you increase the size of the recent documents list from the standard size of 15 items!

Simply visit this link - http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm and look for ‘Change the Number of Recent Documents to 25′. The link provides the registry change required.

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UK Online Advertising Overtakes TV Advertising

Saturday, January 2nd, 2010

A number of sources (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8280557.stm and http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/30/internet-biggest-uk-advertising-sector) have recently reported on findings that online advertising has overtaken TV advertising in the UK.

Although this has been a growing trend for some time now, many in the industry had not expected online advertising to overtake TV advertising until late 2010.

It’s likely that the current economic climate has contributed to accelerating the process.  Businesses looking to make more effective use of their marketing budgets, increasingly look to be taking advantage of the increased value, accountability and measurability of online advertising such as email marketing, display ads and of course search marketing.

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