laurasaur

You would think this would be quite a simple task right. It probably is if you are some SQL guru I imagine, this whole sending mail from a db is a new concept to me, and I may have missed something very basic (wouldn’t be the first time, and certainly not the last).. it does not seem to be all that straight forward.

My first thought was to go with Database Mail. Well, Database Mail is nice enough, I set it all up nicely following the msdn walkthrough here, the test email fired off fine.. I thought all was good and well until I thought my problem through a bit further. I will have a recordset where each row is associated with someone to email with information in that row. So to use the sp_send_dbmail procedure would involve some kind of cursor/crazy stored procedure that I just wasn’t all that keen on writing. Like I said. Im no SQL guru.

So then one of my collegaues said what about Notification Services. I thought, hey cool, I love the BI tools that come with SQL 2005 (especially reporting services <3) and Notification Services I would love to learn about. So I spent 20 mins googling it and then I find out Notification Services does not ship with SQL 2008. Well that kind of pissed me off a bit because I didnt want to implement some solution that would get scrapped in a few months when we upgrade to SQL 08. Not that my workplace is likely to do that anytime soon.. haha.
Anyway, so then I discovered this awesome, and I mean awesome tutorial that basically explains to do exactly what I wanted. One thing I have learnt though, is that delaying validation on the send mail task will allow you to set the ToLine property using an expression. This is the perfect solution for my problem, and means that for every row in the table/recordset I can send a new email to the required person with information from that row.

Another caveat was that to get exchange to act as a SMTP relay so you can fire off the Send Mail task you need to tweak the default settings a bit. The official word on how to do that is here, basically just add the IP address of your Exchange server to the Relay settings in your exchange system manager.

Now I can spam emails to my co workers when I test this on Monday

Studying for exams puts me in 2 moods. Grumpy being the main one, I severely dislike my after-work free time being taken up by reading code and cramming in properties/method names I will possibly never use. Hungry a close contender - a problem easily resolved by a spot of stress-reducing baking.

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Im having issues with .NET 2.0 WSE 3… My web services respond fine to one client but not another. Both of which are on my local machine. So you think it would be an easy fix…

The request failed with HTTP status 415: Unsupported Media Type.

I have seen all the advice saying to add <soapServerProtocolFactory type=”Microsoft.Web.Services3.WseProtocolFactory, Microsoft.Web.Services3, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35”/> to web.config… But my configs are all looking good so what gives.

Well it appears it was something funky to do with MTOM - I had MTOM settings off on the client and on on the server. Switching it off appears to have worked

Now onto the next issue. Sigh. Do not install .NET 3.5 if you still need to publish .NET 2 Web Services….epic issues ftl.

So I got asked to make a cake for my boss at work. First they suggested a 3D Porsche, and after reading this, I decided that was a decidedly bad (read screw that no way in hell can I do that, ever) plan.  So I set about making a Porsche crest from fondant and icing.

Instructions and Pics after the jump Read the rest of this entry »

I did a swap at work, lunch for cupcakes! I thought I got a pretty sweet deal

more after the jump…. Read the rest of this entry »

well my wonderful husband brought home some dessert the other day from circus cirus
which is this really awesome cafe in mt eden. well its awesomeness in my mind increased 100 times when i tried the ricotta cake with citrusy marscapone on the side (i made up the name for that last bit!)

and it increased again the next night when we returned to get a piece each. so, so good. tastes like heaven. anyway, ever since then I have not been able to get it out of my head so I have been trawling the internet for recipes. why does everyone fail me?! I think I am actually going to have to suck it up and go and ask if they will give me the reciepe. cos this one is good but it does not win… and it needs a biscuit base not a pastry one.

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well this week I did a bit of a crazy… me and 2 of the other guys at work somehow ended up working thru most of the night and cramming 2 hours of sleep in before waking up for another full days work :S

well, thats not entirely true, its not like we worked entirely thru the night… we had many breaks to retain some sanity that involved…

• quake 3 LAN
• swiss ball soccer (highly recommended - just make sure not to do indoors over other peoples desks..)
• wrapped one dudes entire desk and everything located on it in newspaper
• a multitude of drinking games…

Ok that sounds like we didnt do much work but I swear we did. I probably got another whole days work in. However this was possibly counteracted a tad by the fact that the next day I was only at 1/2 productivity or so, sleeping on the meeting room floor on 2 couch cushions with NO air conditioning was definitely the low light.

Good times.

And even better, there is still crap loads of work to do. Ahh. Thank goodness its Friday, woot.  I can guarantee I wont be doing that again though. I have missed 4 gym sessions in a row this week