*drum roll in background*

It is…A Dell Laptop – Thank you Husbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand!

I’ve nicknamed it “laal bhabooka” – you’ll know why when you see it below and if you know weird hyderabadi urdu (ie bhabooka).

Dell Inspiron Laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo Processor – in Cherry Red

Random Fact:  this is the 3rd RED gift from Sameer!

It’s a smooth and very “chikna” laptop and after browsing/window shopping for a few hours at stores and a few more hours online and with Sameer’s expertise, this was the one I liked the best.  The Sony Vaio caught the corner of my eye a bit, but this one took it home with the look, feel, the specifications and the amazing battery life! It comes installed with Windows 7, has a DVD/CD Burner, has a webcam which I probably won’t need but it’s nice to have, 4 GB memory, HD widescreen display, 3 USB ports, and much much more! Sameer tells me it’s got an awesome processor and the battery life is a little over 8 hours! And I love the color.

Find it here at Best Buy!

Check out the review on CNET

Love  you Sameer!

http://www.mirillis.com/splash.html

If you own an HD Video Camera – you must have run into issues playing those files on your PC.  I have a Sony and it comes with its own software. Although it is nice for organizing and sorting your videos, it doesn’t have a very friendly video player.  I found it really hard to use its video player to use as a stand alone player.

Some people claim that VLC Player will play those files, and VLC does but it freezes after playing two seconds of the video (at least for me).

So anyways, I searched online and came across this player…

Its called ‘Splash’ and it played my HD files without any issues.  Here is the link to download it:  http://www.mirillis.com/splash.html

Their lite version is out for free and they will be soon coming out with their PRO and other versions.

So, I hope this helps anyone looking for a small and fast m2ts file player!

Anyway,

this is how I ran into this error:

Scheduling a SSIS (SQL Integration Services) job with SQL Server Agent which involves connecting to Siebel backend (Oracle), I first had to change from SSIS job to CmdExec to use 32 bit version of DTExec (also required of you are using 32 bit Oracle Drivers – or any other 32 bit libraries in your SSIS).  (Dont forget to add SERVICE_NAME(s) etc to tnsnames.ora file and point to it in system environment variable – TNS_ADMIN etc..).  Everything looked good and ran it and got this error:

ORA-06413: Connection not open.

what does this error mean:

After searching online I found out that Oracle Provider cannot handle parenthesis in the file path for the apps connecting to the provider.

how did i solve the issue:

Originally my 32bit dtexec statement was:

“D:\Program Files\MICROSOFT SQL SERVER (x86)\90\DTS\Binn\DTExec.exe” /SQL “\BITS\[PackageName]” /SERVER [ServerName] /MAXCONCURRENT ” -1 ” /CHECKPOINTING OFF /REPORTING E

Then I changed it to:

“D:\Program Files\MICROS~1\90\DTS\Binn\DTExec.exe” /SQL “\BITS\[PackageName]” /SERVER [ServerName] /MAXCONCURRENT ” -1 ” /CHECKPOINTING OFF /REPORTING E

This resolved the issue but is just a temporary workaround.  I didnt come up with the solution, I found had to search google, thanks to the following links:

More info:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sqlintegrationservices/thread/ab662d63-6385-4f73-b27f-d526048f601f/

http://phil-austin.blogspot.com/2008/08/ssis-and-oracle-providers-another.html

Hope this was useful!

So last Sunday, I really wanted to watch the game (MN Vikings vs GB Packers) but I didn’t wanna go out, so instead of ordering cable and starting an HD plan for $50 or $70 per month or singing up with NFL or ESPN to watch online… I thought I’ll try an Over-The-Air HDTV Antenna.

The whole ordeal turned out to be time saving and money saving.  The antenna was $35 but I got it for $19 which made the deal even sweeter.

This is how it happened:

After reading all the review I wanted to buy this antenna:

RCA ANT1251 @ Best Buy

So I picked it up and was going to checkout and I thought… wait… I have ShopSavvy app on my Sprint HTC Hero Android phone.. let me scan the bar code…

You can scan a bar code with this app and it will show you how much it is selling for locally (cheapest first), what it’s going for online and even some reviews.

So I scanned the bar code on the box and it showed me that within 5 miles there is a Walmart thats selling it for $19!!  I went to the Customer Service at Best Buy and told them this is selling for $19 at Walmart… Best Buy price-matched and I got a killer deal.

Came home, hooked it up to my LCD HDTV, did a channel scan with both Cable and Antenna options.  Within a few minutes I was watching Fox HD with 5.1 surround sound.  It was amazing.

Moral(s):

1. When buying something – always check how much it is selling for locally and ask for price-matching. (Get ShopSavvy App on your phone!)

2. If you want to watch NCB, ABC, FOX in HD – don’t go for cable.. just get this antenna for $19 and you will get these channels for free for life!*

* Some channels might not be available depnding on your location!