Wallace B. McClure

Mom always warned me to keep my database indexes clean

As I have been working on my Web Search with .NET code, one of the interesting items that I have run into is the need to keep indexes clean and defragmented.  If an index becomes overly fragmented, performance can suffer greatly.  Well sports fans, Sql Server 2000 allows you to defragment indexes while the application is running.  The options on the command that I used is “dbcc indexdefrag (databasename, tablename, indexname);“  There are several options on the command that you can see here.  By defragmenting the indexes, performance jumped way back up (100 search urls / minute jumped up to about 3,000 urls / minute with Full-Text indexing turned off).  The beauty of indexdefrag is that you can defrag the indexes without taking the database offline.  So, mom was right.  Things work better when you keep your indexes cleaned up. 

Wally

Excitement continues to grow

MVP Summit coming up.  Leaving Saturday morning.  Arrive @ W sometime around 12 noon Seattle time.  Looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting lots of new ones.  Talked to Kirk Allen Evans last night on the phone about getting together.  I haven't seen him since we ate lunch in December in DC.  Desparately want to finally meet certain folks like CodeBoy and Darren Neimke.  I will get to see Paul Wilson and David Penton again.  I got really pumped when I checked out Scott Cate's Wiki regarding ride sharing.  If you are going, grab my mobile phone number from Scott's Wiki and get ahold of me Saturday afternoon.  I want to find a good spot to watch the Tech and OSU game in the Final Four.  Anybody know of any other games being played at the Final Four? 

Wally

Web Search on 2 megabits

I tried my Web Search with .NET code this morning after I got my cable modem re-provisioned.  Well, performance looks great after a few minutes.  I am getting a tad bit over 200 Urls / minute inserted into the database.  MSMQ changes look really promising, given just the few minutes that I have watched things.

Wally

Cable Modem problems

I had mentioned in some previous entries about wanting to change my Web Search code to use MSMQ.  I have been out of town and I wanted to get back home to see how the changes ran over my cable modem.  Well, I got home last week, tried the changes, and saw no improvement from here.  What was a programmer to do?  Well, it ends up that the problem was the cable modem had been provisioned while I was gone for 384 kbps instead of the 2 mbps that I was paying for.  After a week of trying different things and testing different configs while talking with the cable modem tech support, I finally got passed around to someone that knew about the provisioning issue.  Finally, the speed problem at home was resolved.

Wally

Dynamically adding controls to a Windows Form in .NET

I just wrote some code to dynamically add some textboxes to a Windows Form in .NET.  I thought I would share it here and see if anyone has any suggestions, since this is my first attempt at dynamically adding elements to a Windows Form in .NET. 

Basically within the form's class, I create an ArrayList, as a private variable in the form's class.  On the Load event of the form, I instantiate the ArrayList and then add TextBox objects to the ArrayList.  Remember that you need to actually add the control to the form by using this.Controls.Add().  On an event, such as a button click, you can get the values of the text boxes as shown in the button click event below.  If you have any suggestions, please put them in as feedback.

//Start Code

private ArrayList arylTxtGEItems;
//VS.NET stuff omitted for brevity.
private void frmEncounterDynamic_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
int i = 0;
this.arylTxtGEItems = new ArrayList();
for(i = 0; i< 3; i++)
{
      this.arylTxtGEItems.Add( new System.Windows.Forms.TextBox() );
      ((System.Windows.Forms.TextBox)this.arylTxtGEItems[i]).Location = new System.Drawing.Point(40, 36 + i * 20);
      ((System.Windows.Forms.TextBox)this.arylTxtGEItems[i]).Name = "txtGE" + i.ToString();
      ((System.Windows.Forms.TextBox)this.arylTxtGEItems[i]).Size = new System.Drawing.Size(184,20);
      ((System.Windows.Forms.TextBox)this.arylTxtGEItems[i]).TabIndex = i + 2;
      ((System.Windows.Forms.TextBox)this.arylTxtGEItems[i]).Text = String.Empty;
      this.Controls.Add( ((System.Windows.Forms.TextBox)this.arylTxtGEItems[i]) );
}
}

private void button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
      MessageBox.Show( ((System.Windows.Forms.TextBox)this.arylTxtGEItems[1]).Text );
}

//End Code

Wally

Can somebody tell this guy to go away

I have 27 copies of this in my email.  Can somebody tell this guy to go away?

Sender: Vashilli
Url: (removed)
IP Address: 212.158.233.234
=====================================

Hi

Sorry if this is a little off topic, but would anybody know of any good examples
on the web of how to perform an automatic reboot using C#?

Update: I have recieved 12 more of these in the last hour. 

Internet closes for cleaning between March 31 and April 2

The internet will be shut down for cleaning for twenty-four hours from March 31 until April 2. This cleaning is necessary to clear out the "electronic flotsam and jetsam" that have accumulated in the network. Dead email and inactive ftp, www, and gopher sites will be purged. The cleaning would be done by "five very powerful Japanese-built multi-lingual Internet-crawling robots (Toshiba ML-2274) situated around the world."

Here is the announcement.  Don't forget to cover up your cable modems, DSL routers, and other high speed connections.  If you don't the dirt will blow out of them and get all over everything.  No telling what kind of dirt could be blown out.  If you use a router between your private network and the internet, make sure that you put plastic plugs in the open ethernet connectors so that stuff doesn't drip out and get on the floor (good tip from daval)..

Wally

Oracle 10g for Windows

FYI for the Oracle fans.  Along with the Oracle 10g for Windows release last week, Oracle released a new version of the Win32 client and specifically ODP.NET for Windows .NET Framework.

Wally

Tech makes it back to the Final Four!

Jackets 79 - Kansas 71.

Bring on OSU............

Go Jackets

Update: And for our UConn fans, while Tech did beat UConn in the Preseason NIT 77-61, some thoughts:

1. Early season games like that mean absolutely nothing.  Injuries and confidence can change a team's makeup from 4 months ago.
2. Emeka Okafor was hobbled by a sore back that has plagued him all year.  When he is in the lineup and not hurting, UConn is the best team in the tournament.

Wally

Georgia Tech Alumni News had Jim Allchin from MS in it

I just got a chance to read the Spring 2004 edition of the Georgia Tech Alumni News that had a news note about Jim Allchin from MS.  I did not realize it, but he got his PhD from Georgia Tech in 1983.  I got a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering specializing in digital signal processing, VLSI design, and computer architectures along with a minor in mathematics from Georgia Tech.  I got my BS in 1990 and my MS in 1991.  Any other Georgia Tech alumni out here?

Wally

PS. For those of you like Kirk Allen Evans, you can't adopt a school.  It only counts if you actually went to the school.  Sorry Kirk, I just had to throw that one in.  ;-)