• IntelliTrace is one of the new feature within the Visual Studio 2010 family of products. I believe visual studio 2010 ultimate edition contains this enhancement. This tool brings automated testing capabilities. I asked Mark few basic questions, and he was very kind in response. Just like other debugger in the microsoft environment, this one can start right within the IDE. We can write automated test scripts depicting certain scenarios, or use the recording option as if you are recording a VBA macro. This in turn generates the code files.
• One can build a lab within the test manager. In the lab, you can have multiple machines. As per Mark, we can have up to 60 machines (or depending upon the environment) tested at the same time.

This one quote has been in my mind for a while. I must have seen in someone's blog or update. The quote is “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Now, I remember... It was Michael Coates aka "The Pragmatic Evangelist", who wrote a blog entry on "Learning, Unlearning, and Relearning". That post helped me find the origin of this quote [http://blog.opsan.com/archive/2005/09/21/1588.aspx]. I learned Alvin Toffler is credited with it. He is a writer, journalist, and furturist. Compared to his journey, I feel like, I'm the opposite of an intellectual or outtellectual (is that even a word?) I think I just invented Rajib-ism.

One Guru in the techspace (Farhan Muhammad) told me technology changes every 6-12 months or so. Working as a techie dude, I realized/continue to realize every bit of what he said. I faced it when Visual studio 98, 2002, 2005, 2008, SQL Server 7.0, 2000, 2005, 2008 came out. One may want to point out, how is that 6-12 months gap? Well, these products also affect other dependent products which have to rush out there to make sure their tools of the trade are compatible or have some workaround. In my humble opinion, it's a reasonable generalization. The rule of the game is simple, we must be on the notice and at the edge of the cliff constantly. While most of the products are backward compatible, some times they are not forward compatible. That tends to make the job challenging, risky and rewarding. A solution that I may have written in .NET 1.0 world, will be completely different in the .NET 2.0 or it's successors. Similar thing happens in the SQL Server world. Either the previous solutions/methods/apis are outdated, deprecated, or we have more ways to do the same thing. This is where the learning of new tricks, unlearning of what you knew before, and relearning of how you solve a particular problem happens. A simple analogy would be some one who eats with chop stick. All of a sudden, the fork technology gets released. Now this person has to learn how to eat with the fork with proper balance, as opposed to the chop sticks. When he gets used to the forks, he has no need of the chop sticks. Anyways, I hope I'm not misusing this Toffler quote, like the way Darwin's "survival of the fittest" quote is. I did have few fun and engaging discussion with my college life biology professor on this. Interestingly enough, he's a George Harrison fan, but, I digress. We have to figure out how flexible we are as it relates to the changes.

One of my mentors, once admonished me, "Whatever you do, you must be consistent". I took that lesson to the heart, but, discipling myself to that principle is an ongoing challenge. Sometimes, I follow it quite well, and some times I have room for improvement. I wish I was a better mentee. Some time facts of life gets in the way and things get complicated. These days I try to be consistent by being agile to the challenge or issue at hand. We don't know what kind of facts we will face. As long as we work fairly and in good spirit, everything should move along fine. 

We all have some form of inner-gadget-freak inside. Sometime that entity manages to go overboard by installing every sort of interesting application on the laptop/desktop. Yes, I admit having multiple database servers running off of my laptop, and few open source servers as well. It's all good until the system is bloated and can not handle anymore. Does it ring a bell? Then you start noticing your laptop is the loudest voice in important meetings, lectures, or other related gatherings. That's when we get the motivation to start unloading every application on the system.  Along the way we manage to get rid of important system dll files. Then we probably crash our system or buy a new laptop. Now, the question is does it repeat for you every 6 to 12 months?

Here is a site I have used in the past in resolving DLL issues [http://www.dll-files.com/]. Hope it helps and please be extra careful in utilizing it (check for version, publisher, and other critical details). It's possible instead of fixing your issue, you may end up building new ones.

I thought the article below was interesting. It talks about the 1st robot capable of generating hypothesis and run experiments to prove it. I could have used one during my undergrad years.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216402727

I ran into SQLServerpedia.com recently. I thought the concept was interesting. Kevin Kline and his colleagues launched that portal. Just like Wikipedia, users can edit entries related to MS SQL server. This will be a useful work related resource for me.

After reading the entries at the SQL server wiki site, I ran into another site that had an intersting tool. They call it TallEye. The purpose of that tool is to find out where you end up after digging a very deep hole from any location in the world map. So, I dug hole at Bangladesh and found out I'd emerge in South Pacific ocean. Interestingly enough, they did not advise how to bypass the core of earth.