Month: November 2017

Two extended dual monitors for business laptops

I have just ported our Accounting Suite project from Visual Studio 2008 R2 to Visual 2013. The latter supports “New Window” for opened .cs files.

Also current GUIs of SQL Server allows you to move your query tabs to a different screen.

More screens will maximize the benefits of this features. I have only one screen output connection.
Yesterday I just bought a VGA to USB 2.0 connection adapter.

Tested it right away with my extra monitor and it worked. The next day I bought a new monitor.

Cons : The screen’s resolution cannot be configured. It is stuck to 800×600.

Play safe. Neutral literal date format for multi language property of SQL Server Login

Lesson learned. My usual date time literal:

YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.nnn

happens to be a bad practice since it is interpreted differently by the language property of the current login.

This sample code shows how it interprets a date with poor format by different languages.

DECLARE @datePoorFormat AS VARCHAR(23);
SET @datePoorFormat = ‘2017-02-12 23:12:12.123’;

DECLARE @DateTable AS TABLE (temp1 DATETIME)

SET LANGUAGE us_english;
INSERT INTO @DateTable(temp1) VALUES (@datePoorFormat);

SET LANGUAGE british
INSERT INTO @DateTable(temp1) VALUES (@datePoorFormat);

SELECT temp1 FROM @DateTable

The result of the query is

2017-02-12 23:12:12.123 — Feb 12
2017-12-02 23:12:12.123 — Dec 02

Please use the neutral formats. For DATETIME type these are:

‘YYYYMMDDHH:MM:SS.nnn’
‘YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.nnn’
‘YYYYMMDD’
I like the second one because hyphens emphasizes date parts better in your code.
BTW language config is set by default at your current login. The picture below shows where you can set it via GUI.

Microsoft exam passed at first attempt. 70-483 Programming in C#

I made sure internet connection is not a problem. I had to set the venue at a test center in Manila. I only had 2 hours of sleep and I was inside the bus on or before 3AM. 9AM is the exam time and I was already at the vicinity 2 hours before. I looked for a place where I can eat, sit and empty my mind.

The test comprises of 50 questions with a passing score of 700. My score is 774. If you are weak at application debugging and applying security then you need to get high scores at program flow, create and use types and etc. That is the same case as mine.

When taking the exam push yourself but take your time. Read thoroughly.

Here is how I prepared.

  1. Read MCSD Certification toolkit Exam 70-483 Programming in C# – WROX (at least 3x)
  2. Read Programming in C# 70-483 Microsoft Publication (at least 2x)
  3. Measure-up official practice exam – downloadable with 30 day free online test. Make sure you are getting 90% something percentile consistently.
  4. MSDN
  5. When in the mood practice on hand.