Trisha's Dev Blog

Multi-Language Google CSEs

Wed, 01 Jun 2011 11:48:00 GMT

Do you have site programmed in multiple languages? Wondering how to use a Google Search effectively on your site without returning results across your site for all languages?

We use Google Custom Search Engines (CSEs) on several of our sites, and you can apply language filters, so that when you flip the switch on your site to present it in other languages, you can also filter your CSE. Checkout this info from the Google support forums.

Happy international programming!

Annoying .svn/tmp/entries Errors During Actions

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:48:00 GMT

Are you on Windows 7? Are you getting this message a lot while using SVN: "Can't move '.svn/tmp/entries' to '.svn/entries': The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

Well, you aren't alone! Apparently, this is a bug specific to the Windows indexing service in Windows 7. I was seeing this during longer running updates and commits, and was causing me a bunch of grief. I discovered through some research that I was able to fix the problem by turning off the indexing service on the Visual Studio 2008 > Projects folder. Of course, this does mean that the little built-in search box in Windows Explorer is never going to return any results in this folder. Alas.

Hope this helps you!

Unlocking a Contribute File

Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:58:00 GMT

Very often, clients who are using Contribute call with a problem with a file being locked for editing. Since we usually administer their sites with Dreamweaver, we've developed a quick way to unlock these files. I've read about deleting lock files and such, but this is the way I can always remember without having to stop and look it up.

Open the site in Dreamweaver (make sure Contribute compatibility is turned on for the site). Connect to the Remote site and see if a red check-mark is present on this file. This means someone forgot to check it back in and the connection was lost. The file has become locked. To unlock, override their checkout. If it wants to overwrite your local file, and the date on the remote file is newer than the local file, you should let it do so to prevent losing the updates on the remote server. Once you override, both the local and remote checks should turn green and show you as the person having it checked out. You can then check the file in, and the file should be ready for Contribute editing.

Happy editing!

Killing Processes in SQL Server

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:48:00 GMT

Ever need to kill off a pile of processes in SQL Server? You can do this one by one using the activity monitor, but if you have 150 or so to kill, might take a while.

Here's a handy little piece of SQL that'll do the job for you:

ALTER DATABASE MyDatabase SET SINGLE_USER WITH ROLLBACK IMMEDIATE
GO

ALTER DATABASE MyDatabase SET MULTI_USER
GO

Takes only a few seconds, and you're there. Just make sure you don't boot anybody out that is doing something important.

A Thought on Website Development Costs

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 13:51:00 GMT

How much should a website cost? It's a question I get asked almost every day. To put things into perspective, Amazon.com has spent billions, yes, that's billions with a "b" and an "s" on the end on theirs. Source: http://www.donloper.com/managing-an-agency/how-much-does-a-website-cost.html.

So, when you ask your local developer for a website like Amazon, be prepared to have some venture capital backing your project. :)

Just thought this was a good commentary on what web development CAN cost, keeping in mind that expectations should be kept in-line with budget. Hope this is helpful!