Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-28

By pcurd

• I think I might watch Spaceballs tonight. I'm in that sort of mood. #
• I heard about @Kiva from a news post from @jephjacques for the webcomics group. #mykivastory #
• RT @arcaedia 2 ARCs CHANGES by Jim Butcher @longshotauthor 2 chances to win. RT & comment on http://bit.ly/afbgr8 by 10am 3/25 #dresdenfile #
• Is it me or does Darling sound nervous? #Budget #
• Staged duty increase on fuel.. better than nothing I guess. 1p in April, 1p in October, rest in Jan 2011 #budget2010 #budget #
• Bad time to be a cider drinker, 10% duty rise ABOVE inflation.. ouch. #budget #budget2010 #
• Boost to Games Industry! Thank whatever it is you want to thank! #budget #budget2010 #
• Time for sleep – still can't decide if I'm going to drive to #rdgtwestival and stay sober or not drive and be very late. Mmm. #
• My Battle.net account was compromised again sorted now, but why are people targetting me?! #
• Really enjoyed @chris_quartly's Spotify Playlist http://bit.ly/bsoSB6 "The noughties" over the last two days. Thanks Chris! #
• People! Everywhere! Not sure I approve #rdgtwestival #
• We've just been RickRolled at #rdgtwestival #
• RT @timmorgan: RT @RobAshton: Barmaid is hot, @chris_alexander agrees #rdgtwestival – nice (. ) ( .) <- #win #
• RT @RDGTwestival: no. 295 wins 2 bottles of red wine and no. 247 gets white wine! <- 295 was me! ^_^ #
• RT @RobAshton: RT @Chris_Alexander: RT @RobAshton: MOAR tequila!! #rdgtwestival #
• Champagne through a straw? Why not! @Chris_Alexander says yes! #rdgtwestival http://twitpic.com/1awn1n #
• Home. What a truly epic night. Reminds me why I support local events! The @RDGTwestival crowd may convince me to stay in #rdg yet. #
• RT @bennuk: Had an initial count-up, and #rdgtwestival has raised over £1,500 for charity Concern! HUGE thanks to all who came! <- woo! #
• I found two day old pizza! #drunkfood #win #
• Good night all. #rdgtwestival was epic, thanks @bennuk, @amykate, @TheSourceress, @deepwire, @dtsn and @jamesbmarshall. You all #win #
• RT @DavidSouthall: @PCurd there is a guy filming Scott down the front left of the auditorrium at the #guathon <- awesome! Thanks! #
• Half a bottle of #rdgtwestival red wine and a curry. Friday night (Saturday Morning) bliss! @SatScenes http://twitpic.com/1b4uox #
• New Photoblog: The Thames at Pangbourne from The Swan http://bit.ly/bQBEMo #
• New Photoblog: My new car http://photos.pcurd.co.uk/index.php/2010/03/27/my-new-car/ #
• http://twitpic.com/1bba3b – For those who can't access my blog (i.e. everyone, thanks @WebFusion) a twitpic of my new car! #
• My new car has officially broken down The AA are on their way – not impressed! #
• Thanks for the best wishes people. AA due in 10 minutes. #
• AA man is still 10 minutes away – roughly 70 minutes late. We're all cold and tired now #
• I'm back home. AA man says broken Butterfly assembly in throttle and fuel pickup is faulty so it only drinks from top 2/3rds of tank. Phew #
• Hopefully easy to get fixed. Short non techie version: car ran out of fuel with 1/3rd tank left and broken dohicker in the flange. #
• Thx @timmorgan @phil_crabtree @noirem @carocat @talldavek @tinnion @amykate @beautifulvenice @CllrDaisyBenson @deepwire for sympathy! #
• I'm up and out already. It is not pleasant! #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-21

By pcurd

• RT @amykate: I get a lot done laying on @nicktelford #chineseretweet #
• RT @amykate Use your data intelligently or face the wrath of spurned woman everywhere http://bit.ly/clk1Ft #rdg – I agree! Be smart w/data! #
• http://twitpic.com/18y0zf – Erm I think @spotify might be pushing Lady Gaga.. do you think? #
• So far today I have given a 10 minutes demo of SQL storage and spent the entire day firefighting.. can I do my job now? No? How suprising. #
• I registered for #SQLBits http://sqlbits.com #
• RT @ARGibson: RT @chriscanal: Ubisoft vs. Pirates: http://is.gd/aLZlu <- So true! #
• I <3 the coalesce function in SQL 2008 – it is my newest friend. #sad #sql #mssql #
• Pre #rdgtweetup – it's a tradition! (@ Burger King) http://4sq.com/cYHkXn #
• I've asked my MP to ensure that draconian internet laws are not rushed through parliament. http://bit.ly/boKmLO #38degrees #debill #
• RT @bennuk: My milkshake brings all the geeks to the yard – http://twitpic.com/19bz94 <- good Lord! #
• Just got really pleased when I sped up a process by 200%! Then I realised I had commented half of it out :-S #fail #
• Nom! @giraffetweet for edamame (@ Giraffe Reading) http://4sq.com/5OfoyL #
• Just spent a few hours converting Java to C#.. quite theraputic. However JLCA has ballsed up an applet. May have to rewrite from scratch. #
• RT @comixed Gimme Back My Sparkly Thing – Comixed http://bit.ly/ayLkos #
• RT @comixed Hey Kid! – Comixed http://bit.ly/dwrc8Q #
• RT @comixed Crying Baby Is A Crybaby – Comixed http://bit.ly/9qLVGS #
• More Java hackery – JLCA doesn't produce threadsafe code when invoking UI objects. My app is getting there though! 30% of client working. #
• RT @amykate: latest raffle prize for #rdgtwestival – Rockband!!! http://twitpic.com/19s07g <- awesome! Courtesy of whom? #
• Wake up attempt 3 is so far going better than 1 and 2.. It might even stick now. Lie in = good. #
• I have to wake up at 5:30 yet at 1:00 I was still playing Modern Warfare 2 -damn this chair is comfy! Could never do 5 hours straight before #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-14

By pcurd

• RT @bennuk: Peace, Love and Wireless Controllers – http://is.gd/9SY0S <- great social commentry from Ben! @carocat you should read. #
• Gah not only have I been up since 6, now I'm standing all the way to Paddington. My bagel is getting cold! #
• Anyone else find it funny that I bought an Early Bird ticket for the @RDGTwestival http://bit.ly/a304lk when I'm actually going to be late? #
• Going to bed now – getting up early feels weird. I do kind of like being properly tired at night though. #
• RT @lukesmith: good burger king with @PCurd for lunch <- nom nom. I miss having lunch with people more often #
• I'm exhausted and have work to do tonight so I'm going to have to miss #rdggeek tonight Sorry to the speakers and @JimAnning. #
• Seems @virginmedia is down in RG2 #
• Woo @virginmedia back up! Down for approx 1hr – not bad considering first outage in 9/10 months. #
• Struggling to get in gear today. Going to bed time seems to effect my sleepiness in the morning more than I expected. #
• Just met a woman on the tube, 5'7, dyed red hair, freckles, north eastern USA accent carrying a puppy. I'm in love #
• Just met a woman on the tube, 5'7, dyed red hair, freckles, north eastern USA accent carrying a puppy. I think I'm in love #
• Just getting a free latte on #wakeupwednesday from @giraffetweet Blandford Street! http://twitpic.com/17owg8 in reply to giraffetweet #
• Wow new @echofon Pro fixes a bug I'd just learnt to live with. Good to see iterative improvements adding new features too. #
• Apparently Michael Barrymore is in the same building as me.. O…K… #
• I'm in the market for a cheap server, 8GB RAM, X64 with IVT, 250GB+.. Ideally freestanding and cheap! #
• What? I don't have a problem! #twitch http://twitpic.com/182cnt #
• New Photoblog: Coffee? What coffee? http://photos.pcurd.co.uk/index.php/2010/03/12/coffee-what-coffee/ #
• Top 10 Japanese Etiquette Mistakes http://bit.ly/a3PpBE [What not to do in Japan]
  (via @jackschofield) @phil_crabtree #
• A week in London has made me think about whether I actually enjoy living in Reading… Tricky question. #
• New Photoblog: Birds in Regents Park http://photos.pcurd.co.uk/index.php/2010/03/12/birds-in-regents-park/ #

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-07

By pcurd

• RT @timmorgan: Looking forward to seeing Hed(pe) on Wednesday with @PCurd <- me too! I love spending time with @PCurd #
• I'm not sure if this is a bad translation, a passive aggressive suggestion or an insult in Palringo IM client http://twitpic.com/160u1f #
• Hey, @PCurd? Do you like spending time with me or do you just tolerate me for a sniff of my awesome aftershave? #
• Nothing personal @PCurd, but since you got friends, I'm just not feeling it anymore. It's not you, it's me. #
• Seeing (hed) pe (@ Sub 89) http://4sq.com/aucFWg #
• I give Atilla 6/10! Not bad for opening band! #livemusic #
• Just saw some band who's name I didn't catch from the You Ess of Ay. Not impressed next up is #Hedpe #
• w/ @timmorgan (@ Pavlov's Dog) http://4sq.com/9RW5An #
• Amazingly awesome night seeing (hed) pe w/@timmorgan. I met & fist pumped Jared and got a signed CD. I'm blown away that they came to #rdg #
• Well here I am, 1:30 and at work. I just wish I had a product to show for it! #
• New Photoblog: Sunrise over Finchampstead http://photos.pcurd.co.uk/index.php/2010/03/05/sunrise-over-finchampstead/ #
• My 'day' in numbers: coffees: 10. Cokes: 5. Hours: 30. Biscuits: 2. Viruses killed: 12. Sanity: 18%. Genius moments: -3. #
• Day of many days is now over. 34 hours straight. **sigh** so much still to do #
• Receieved a free Starbucks Via sample today and it's really good. Will be buying a couple of packs for sure! #
• Setting alarms for 6 am at 2 am is bad. Shouldn't be allowed! #

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Renaming Microsoft SQL Server servers and the effects on SPNs

By pcurd

Last week I saw a post on Simon Sabin’s blog about SQL Server service accounts and SPNs and made a comment about the importance of SPNs when renaming a SQL Server or migrating several servers into .. less than several. I felt this an area worth expanding a little more.

I’ll describe a hypothetical SQL Server infrastructure, changes to be made and how I would resolve the Kerberos issues that would result.

The base infrastructure:

A simple SQL Server environment with two Microsoft SQL Servers – SQLA and SQLB. The dataset on these two servers is different, no databases are shared. The domain for this company is “example” and the DC is “example.com” and so their usernames are formed “example/UserName”.

The new infrastructure:

A new SQL Server is purchased with power enough to run the entire dataset and it is to be called SQLA. The service account is to be a domain user called “sqlservice”.

However, there are a lot of applications that link to SQLB by name and recoding them all is considered too much work. (A classic example is Access which doesn’t make changing the source of tables easy without relinking)

A solution:

Migrate the total dataset to the new server, assign it a name of SQLA and take account of Simon’s SPN advice – i.e. use Network Service or a domain account to run the SQL Service. Use DNS to create a record for “SQLB” pointing to SQLA. If you want to be really fancy, assign the original IP address of SQLB as an additional IP on SQLA.

The result:

Connecting to “SQLA” via NTLM, SQL Database logins (assuming they were migrated too) and Kerberos works fine – as you’d expect. However, connecting to “SQLB” only works for NTLM and SQL Database logins – Kerberos fails along the lines of “Cannot generate SSPI Context”.

The solution:

As you may have guessed from the title of this article, the solution lies with SPNs. When you register for a Kerberos token you are doing so against a server name – and in this case, when talking to “SQLB”, that server name is wrong. So how does one send the correct name? Well in the example above, you can’t. You are stuck sending “SQLB”. The only solution is to make the name not wrong. To do this, we register another SPN against SQLA – effectively allowing it to understand and use the tokens made against “SQLB”.

The syntax is along these lines: (Please note, written from memory so some tweaking may be in order)

SetSPN -a mssqlsrv/SQLB.example.com:1433 example\sqlservice
SetSPN -a mssqlsrv/SQLB.example.com example\sqlservice
SetSPN -a host/SQLB.example.com
SetSPN -a host/SQLB

More details on SetSPN can be found on MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178119.aspx (Registering Kerberos Service Principle Names by Using Http.sys).