SQL shipping hyperlinks

I found this discussion thread while looking for ways to construct hyperlinks for tracking numbers on a web page:

http://community.salesforce.com/sforce/board/message?board.id=practices&thread.id=7643

UPS, FedEx and DHL each use a slightly different url format. I took their example and built a simple SQL case statement:

select
tracking_url = case when x.shipping_method = 'FedEx'
then 'http://www.fedex.com/Tracking?ascend_header=1&clienttype=dotcom&cntry_code=us&language=english&tracknumbers=' & x.tracking_number
when x.shipping_method = 'UPS'
then 'http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInputRequest?HTMLVersion=5.0&sort_by=status&loc=en_US&InquiryNumber1=' & x.tracking_number & '&track.x=32&track.y=7'
when x.shipping_method = 'DHL'
then lhttp://track.dhl-usa.com/TrackByNbr.asp?ShipmentNumber=' & x.tracking_number
else
'Unknown shipping method!'
end
from
dbo.orders x


SQL Server – post installation

Here are some steps to perform after installing SQL Server:

http://www.sql-server-performance.com/articles/dba/post_installation_steps_p1.aspx

I usually keep a spreadsheet handy with all of “specialized” installation steps that I want to perform. My company uses a SharePoint wiki for configuration management, so after I perform the steps I enter them into the config mgmt wiki.

SharePoint online store example

While I was researching public-facing sites that leverage SharePoint, I stumbled across one in Hebrew. I think it demonstrates how flexible SharePoint can be with regards to site design:

http://www.cellcom.co.il/Pages/default.aspx

Exchange Server 2010: Overview

Jaap Wesselius wrote a fairly comprehensive overview of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010:

http://www.simple-talk.com/sysadmin/exchange/introduction-to-exchange-server-2010/

Co-location Hosting Tips

I was researching “best practices” for managed hosting and stumbled upon this discussion thread:

http://it.slashdot.org/story/09/11/09/1953241/How-Do-You-Evaluate-a-Data-Center?from=rss

“This computer does not support video conferencing”

I was cleaning up my brother’s iMac and found that audio conferencing worked in  iChat, but video conferencing would now. I opened the Audio/Video preferences of iChat aound received the following message:

“This computer does not support video conferencing”

I found the solution to the problem on this discussion thread:

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1460351

In summary, here are the steps I followed to resolve the issue:

1. Located the following file on my MacBook Pro:
/System/Library/QuickTime/QuickTimeUSBVDCDigitizer.component

2. Zipped it up and attached it to an email message and mailed myself.
3. Logged into my brother’s iMac, retrieved the email message, saved and unzipped the file.
4. Copied the file to the following folder, overwriting the existing file that was there:
/System/Library/QuickTime/

5. Launched iChat and the video conferencing now works!

Note that iChat must be closed for you to overwrite the file, otherwise you’ll get a “permissions” error message. Also, there appeared to be several conditions under which this message can occur–this is just the fix that worked for me.