If you look at life like a mountain you'll never reach the peak. If you spend each day walking one day you look down and realise your at the top.

Martin Beeby

Effects: SQL Server 2005 SP2

Some of the users on our system today were unable to print from Reporting Services. After they pressed the print Icon selected a printer and then printed, the browser would just hang. It turns out the DLL that handles the client side printing RSClientPrint Class.dll fails if the SQL server has NO COUNT ON set as default.

You can check on your SQL server if this has been set by going to Server> Properties > Connections > and making sure NOCOUNT is unchecked.

If your having this problem either make sure NOCOUNT is unchecked or add  “SET NOCOUNT OFF” to the top of the Stored Procedures used by reporting services.

It’s often the case that I can’t connect to microsoft.com because i’m using IE. IE struggles to load Microsoft.com websites quickly, often hanging for hours on end. However this morning was the first time I’ve never been able to access the Mozilla website in Firefox but could do it in IE.

Thhe website is:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843

Can other firefox users get access?

Just for anyone that doubt I had an Internet connection in Firefox:

I only just heard that Adriana Alba left the semifinalists. After loving their second album I was gutted to hear she’d packed up and went home to the US. I hope the band continue to make great music despite losing such a talent.

I wanted a Tracy Island! I wanted it bad. I had no idea why, but one thing was for sure my mum knew about it. Coming up to Christmas I dropped hints like they were wet dogs.

At the time there was a great deal of hype around the Tracy island toy, I know I should have been stronger but I just couldn't resist, I wanted, I wanted, I wanted. My mum told me I couldn't have one she said "Martin your twenty three now your not getting a big present anymore" I was gutted. Ok I lied there it was 1992 and I was 10, I think mum and dad couldn't afford it and there was no chance in hell I was going to get one. As I got older and started studying marketing (I know I'm on about BLOODY MARKETING AGAIN - ten people just stopped reading this blog right there) I was fascinated by the way that these companies were able to create such hysteria around their product enough so that It would sell out over and over again… Then I discovered one of the toy industries darkest secrets.

Christmas time is a huge deal for toy manufacturers. They sell more at Christmas than any other time of the year; however January, February and March are huge slumps and difficult times. Companies reduce prices to increase sales put promotions don't really work – marketers have a problem - how can they smooth the slump and make parents pay at Christmas then keep buying through February.

Enter the fake short supply scam. Toy manufactures under supply toys that they market heavily during November and December. They use news channels to promote the fact that all of the toys are sold out everywhere, they make children want them, the toy becomes a must have Christmas present but shock horror you can't buy it anywhere. Parents all over the country make the same promise to their children. "I'll buy you one after Christmas".

Low and behold the shops are stocked full of substitute presents so the parents buy toys at Christmas to pacify their children. Come January the toy manufacturer place a few adverts stating the toy is back in stock and like lambs to the slaughter parents everywhere rush out to buy it, strangely enough this time there's no shortages of the product. I'd suggest this is the biggest example of the power and intelligence of modern marketers. Between the toy manufactures and the people behind the Top Shop/ Kate Moss scam, marketers are day by day forcing shit on us we don't need or want.

It's a beautiful arrangement.

I never did get a Tracy Island, James did (the one with the bar) turns out it was rubbish.

There are 29.7 billion pages on the net

Since trees are different sizes, it would be difficult to say how much paper comes from one tree. According to one paper manufacturer, however, a cord of wood measuring 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet—or 128 cubic feet—produces nearly 90,000 sheets

Therefore it would take three hundred and thirty thousand trees to print the Internet.

If you call GetDate you get todays date and time but what if you just want the date and not the time.

SQL provides no simple mechanism to do this but the solution below is probably the best way I’ve found:

CAST(FLOOR( CAST( GETDATE() AS FLOAT ) )AS DATETIME)

So a full example would be:

DECLARE @CurrentDate Datetime 
SET @CurrentDate = GETDATE() 
DECLARE @CurrentDateFloor Datetime 

SET @CurrentDateFloor  = CAST(FLOOR( CAST( GETDATE() AS FLOAT ) )AS DATETIME) 

SELECT @CurrentDateFloor  

2007–30-07 12:12:45 becomes 2007-30-07 00:00:00