Manage SQL Azure Databases with the Web Interface 'Houston'

 Read this 'How-to' article on the Packt Site.

The 'Houston' project was one of the incubation projects of the windows Azure cloud services. This project has entered into production and you will find it in the new Windows Azure Portal (https://windows.azure.com). All New services can be accessed from the 'Ribbon' under Common Tasks.

 
This article is about the 'Houston' project when it was still in incubation. You can still access the labs portal(http://www.sqlazurelabs.com/). In this article some of the features of this web based tool as well as how carry out few of the basic tasks are described. Houston project provided the following basic database management tasks:

•Authoring and executing queries
•Designing and editing database schema
•Editing table data

Readers are encouraged to read my comprehensive book on SQL Azure.  Also you may enter a raffle to win a copy of the book.

Do you want free copies of my latest book (on SQL Azure)?

My latest book on SQL Azure (details below) covers comprehensively all aspects of Microsoft's relational database on the Windows Azure Platform. If you are interested in getting a free copy of the book all you need to do is to enter your email and mailing address (send them to mysorian@gmail.com with subject line text - SQL Azure Book) to a raffle organized by my publisher. Two lucky winners will be picked from the first 50 who respond, the first winner will be getting a hard-copy and the second getting an eBook version. You are not required to do anything else, but I do appreciate if you would let me know through email what you think about it (the good,the bad and the ugly). If you have a blog/website kindly put up a book link there and if you are the reviewing type please get in touch with Sunil Chakravarthy (sunilc@packtpub.com).

Thank you

https://www.packtpub.com/microsoft-sql-azure-enterprise-application-development/book

This is a deal you should not miss

The odds are very good. Just complete a simple puzzle on the Packt site and you get a free subscription for 1 year of PacktLib (worth $200). PacktLib is an impressive resource (over 400 books) that contains cutting edge books on a whole lot of computer related subjects which you always wanted to read.

For details access the following link:

https://www.packtpub.com/article/microsoft-books-competition

COBOL News

I was surprised that COBOL is still living and kicking. Perhaps my ignorance (I have since read up on the developments since 2002). The reason being, I taught Microsoft web technology and JavaScript to a bunch of COBOL programmers back in 2000 who had massively lost their jobs (mainframe) in the previous years. They were charmed at everything related to WEB and they had no idea of HTML or XML but were very good at keyboard.

Looks like Microfocus and Fijitsu carried the torch, so to say, since 2002 and still continue to do so. COBOL should have gotten its fair share of Business related activities (all this buzz about business) and .NET support should have been provided even earlier, and by this time it could have found a place on the cloud and COBOL programmers could have kept their jobs.

Bing is about beauty

I know it because every morning I see it.

What should really matter in this world are beauty and truth. Bing most definitely has one and I have not given much thought about the truth aspect. But are they not, really one and the same! Keats puts it more beautifully and truthfully than others.

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy? 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,

Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

Ode to a Grecian Urn
John Keats 1795-1821

SQL Server Compact problems

Actually they are not problems of SQL Server Compact but the problems faced by developers who may want to use the latest Microsfot Programs / Tools.

Review the following on my other blog:

Microsoft LightSwitch and SQL Server Compact 3.5
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2010/12/microsoft-lightswitch-and-microsoft-sql.html


SQL Server 2011 (CTP) and SQL Server Compact 3.5

http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2011/01/no-connection-to-sql-server-compact.html

This is another article you may really want to read:
http://hodentekmsss.blogspot.com/2010/07/sql-server-compact-35-basics-you-must.html

2010 was a good year

All in all 2010 was a good year. The blog readership increased to almost the double of 2009. Probably most of it due to the posts on SQL Server related posts and some of it due to the 'How do I..." type posts on Http://hodentekHelp.blogpost.com. 
Most of my readers hail from USA, India and UK in that order. The three big cluster of readers are from USA, Europe and India.
Here is a generalized graph of the posts and page hits in 2010. The maximum for a month was around 5000.

This year I was able to publish my 3rd book,

http://hodentek.blogspot.com/2010/12/my-sql-azure-book-is-published.html.

I hope I will be able to write many more in the future.

I take this opportunity to thank all the readers of my blogs. I wish you all a very Happy New Year.