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SQL Server 2005 drives better decision-making with enterprise-grade reporting and data analysis. A highly reliable database platform for critical applications, SQL Server 2005 delivers high levels of availability, performance, and security. For more information and links to SQL Server 2005 resources, please visit:

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New iPhone Could Render Apple TV Obsolete

We all know that Apple will be unleashing a new version of the iPhone this summer and this highly anticipated handset is sounding better and better by the moment. We've already heard about possible upgrades like a 3-megapixel camera and video calling, but now we've got another juicy tidbit to consider.

You see, Apple has told its retailers to start putting the iPod AV cables on clearance. Why is this notable? Because they're reportedly making way for a new set of AV cables that combine both composite and component video outputs into a single set of cables. These will function in much the same way as the component cables for the Xbox 360.

If you go with the composite configuration, you'll get SD video as you've always had, but if you go with the component configuration, you can gain access to 720p and 1080i video output. That's because, so the story goes, the new iPhone (and iPod touch) will be capable of doing some great HD video goodness. And it'll output it through these new cables.

So, how does this relate to Apple TV? By the sounds of things, Apple will include a handy piece of software in iPhone 3.0 that "closely replicates" the functionality of Apple TV. In this way, you may be able to stream HD video content over a Wi-Fi connection, through your iPhone, and into your HDTV using the said cables. The Apple TV-like menu gives you access to not only locally stored media, but also stuff that can stream over Wi-Fi or 3G.

Chalk this up to rumor for now, but I wouldn't put it past Cupertino to do this. Too bad for Apple TV. Too good for iPhone Next

INTEL Vs AMD – The short review

I SUPPOSE YOU COULD SAY we've conducted plenty of CPU reviews in our time, but we just can't bring ourselves to slow things down. The release of Windows Vista and a round of price cuts by AMD prompted us to hatch a devious plan involving Vista, a new test suite full of multithreaded and 64-bit applications, fifteen different CPU configurations, and countless hours of lab testing.

Choosing a processor is an exercise in predicting the future. Given the rapid pace of technology, you'd ideally like a CPU—and the other parts of the system—to last a few years. Choose a CPU that's too new and you end up on the pricey, bleeding edge of the envelope. Choose one that's been around too long and you may find yourself struggling to run new software. Whether you're buying a PC, making an upgrade, or building a new system from scratch, you'll face the same problems.

Intel has been firing on all cylinders while AMD has been playing catch-up. The coming year looks to be more of the same. Both companies are poised to introduce new product lines. Intel is moving forward with a substantially new micro architecture, whereas AMD is just now making the move to the 45nm manufacturing process, which Intel has been using for nearly a year. The smaller architecture allows CPU manufacturers to build processors that use lower power and run at higher clock speeds, as well as cram more transistors on a CPU die.

Still, moving to 45nm should make AMD somewhat more competitive, at least in the midrange and low-end desktop market. AMD's Phenom processor line had some advantage in certain types of servers, particularly those applications that benefit from low latency memory access. Yet Intel's latest CPU, the Core i7 series, may eliminate or reduce those advantages.

Shift+Delete

Do you need to recover lost files, photos or documents? You're sure that a file was on your hard disk some time ago, but now it seems to have disappeared. Perhaps you archived some files or photos to CD or DVD to save disk space, and now the disk is corrupt or unreadable? Or perhaps your computer won't boot up, and you don't have a backup!

It may seem as if all is lost. But don't panic! Your data is almost certainly still on your hard drive somewhere. This article will help you choose the best method for restoring them.

Accidental deletion is the most common cause of lost data. Modern operating systems provide protection against accidentally deleting files. In Windows, it's called the Recycle Bin. It's basically a special folder to which files are moved when they are deleted. As far as the operating system is concerned files that are deleted to the Recycle Bin are not really deleted at all. If you think you have deleted a file, the Recycle Bin should be the first place that you look.

If you empty the Recycle Bin, or Shift+Delete a file, then the file becomes deleted as far as the operating system is concerned. The file disappears from any folder listing and the disk space occupied by the data becomes available for re-use. But the data is not physically erased from the disk. The disk space still contains the data. And it is not re-used immediately. What data recovery products do is find ways to locate this data so that the files can be undeleted or unerased
When files are deleted, a lot of pointers to the data are still left lying around. Because of this, recovering deleted files can be treated as a special case as far as data recovery goes.
It's a lot quicker than a full data recovery, which requires locating the contents of lost files with no additional pointers at all. Some data recovery tools will only recover deleted files.

Recovering photos

Specialist data recovery software can speed up the process and improve the chances of success by searching just for specific file types. . Using forensic techniques they can locate lost files on otherwise unrecoverable disks.

Photo recovery software will know, for example, that a JPG image file will start with the characters "JFIF". Following that is a header that gives more information about the file, such as its length. The software will scan the disk looking for a cluster that starts with "JFIF", determine the expected file length, and then read as many clusters as necessary to create a file of that length.

However, the recovered images will be corrupt if the file was fragmented. Because the data stream in a photo image file is essentially random, it isn't as easy to piece together a file from fragments in the way that you can for a text-based document.

ODBC Vs OLEDB

Hi all, Hope this post will help for the DB beginners. :)
Back in the old days, database connectivity was difficult. Everybody had their own database formats, and developers had to know a low level API for each database they wished to develop for. There was a push for a universal API, an API which would work for numerous data stores. It was about this time that ODBC, or Open Database Connectivity, which was an early attempt at creating this universal API. A number of databases conformed to this standard, and became known as ODBC-compliant databases. ODBC-compliant databases consist of Access, MS-SQL Server, Oracle, Informix, etc.

ODBC is Open Data Base Connectivity, which is a connection method to data sources and other things. It requires that you set up a data source, or what's called a DSN using an SQL driver or other driver if connecting to other database types. Most database systems support ODBC

Well, ODBC wasn't perfect. It still contained a lot of low-level calls, and was difficult to develop with. Developers had to focus more on low-level communications with the database, as opposed to being able to concentrate on getting the data they needed and using it how they saw fit. Along came Microsoft's solution: DAO, or Data Access Objects.

.OLE is Object Linking and Embedding. OLEDB is partly distinguished from OLE itself, now called "automation". OLEDB is the successor to ODBC, a set of software components that allow a "front end" such as GUI based on VB, C++, Access or whatever to connect with a back end such as SQL Server, Oracle, DB2, mySQL etal. In many cases the OLEDB components offer much better performance than the older ODBC.OLEDB is a different type of data provider that came about with MS's Universal Data Access in 1996 and does not require that you set up a DSN. It is commonly used when building VB apps and is closely tied to ADO. It works with COM, and DCOM as of SQL 7.0.

OLEDB sits between the ODBC layer and the application. With your ASP pages, ADO is the "application" that sits above OLEDB. Your ADO calls are first sent to OLEDB, which are then sent to the ODBC layer. You can connect directly to the OLEDB layer, though, and if you do so, you'll see an increase in performance for server-side cursors (the default cursor type for recordsets, and the most common type of cursor used).

Visual Studio Test Attributes

When we built our test in the previous section, we were required to use the following two attributes:
· [TestMethod] – Used to mark a method as a test method. Only methods marked with this attribute will run when you run your tests.
· [TestClass] – Used to mark a class as a test class. Only classes marked with this attribute will run when you run your tests.
When building tests, you always use the [TestMethod] and [TestClass] attributes. However, there are several other useful, but optional, test attributes. For example, you can use the following attribute pairs to setup and tear down tests:
· [AssemblyInitialize] and [AssemblyCleanup] – Used to mark methods that execute before and after all of the tests in an assembly are executed
· [ClassInitialize] and [ClassCleanup] – Used to mark methods that execute before and after all of the tests in a class are executed
· [TestInitialize] and [TestCleanup] – Used to mark methods that execute before and after each test method is executed
For example, you might want to create a fake HttpContext that you can use with all of your test methods. You can setup the fake HttpContext in a method marked with the [ClassInitialize] attribute and dispose of the fake HttpContext in a method marked with the [ClassCleanup] attribute.
There are several attributes that you can use to provide additional information about test methods. These attributes are useful when you are working with hundreds of unit tests and you need to manage the tests by sorting and filtering the tests:
· [Owner] – Enables you to specify the author of a test method
· [Description] – Enables you to provide a description of a test method
· [Priority] – Enables you to specify an integer priority for a test
· [TestProperty] – Enables you to specify an arbitrary test property
You can use these attributes when sorting and filtering tests in either the Test View window or the Test List Editor.
Finally, there is an attribute that you can use to cause a particular test method to be ignored when running a test. This attribute is useful when one of your tests has a problem and you just don’t want to deal with the problem at the moment:
· [Ignore] – Enables you to temporarily disable a test. You can use this attribute on either a test method or an entire test class

Unit test in VS 2005

If you didn't know it already, it is not a difficult one to learn.Tremendous progress is being made on several fronts: IDE integration, process integration, and new test fixtures. In here I will cover unit testing in Visual Studio 2005, including VSTS unit testing, NUnit and MBUnit--the Superman of unit testing. First post I’ll cover NUnit testing.

NUnit
NUnit is the unit testing framework that has the majority of the market share. It utilizes attributes to identify what a test is.
The TestFixture attribute is used to identify a class that will expose test methods.
The Test attribute is used to identify a method that will exercise a test subject.
Let's get down to business and look at some code. First we need something to test.
public class Subject
{
public Int32 Add(Int32 x, Int32 y)
{
return x + y;
}
}
That Subject class has one method: Add.
We will test the Subject class by exercising the Add method with different arguments.
[TestFixture]
public class tSubject
{
[Test]
public void tAdd()
{
Int32 Sum;
Subject Subject = new Subject();
Sum = Subject.Add(1,2);
Assert.AreEqual(3, Sum);
}
}
The class tSubject is decorated with the attribute TestFixture, and the method tAdd is decorated with the attribute Test.
You can compile this and run it in the NUnit GUI application. It will produce a successful test run.
That is the basics of what NUnit offers. There are attributes to help with setting up and tearing down your test environment:
SetUp, SetUpFixture, TearDown, and TearDownFixture. SetUpFixture is run once at the beginning when the fixture is first created; similarly,
TearDownFixture is run once after all tests have completed. SetUp and TearDown are run before and after each test.
NUnit tests can be run several different ways: from the GUI application, from the console's application, and from a NAnt task. NUnit has been integrated into Cruise Control .NET as well. In the last product review, you will see how it has been integrated into the VS.NET IDE as well.