SQL Reports and Firefox 3

Want SQL Reports to render in your browser on the Mac or in any Firefox browser?

Without this fix you end up with a 2 inch frame containing the report contents.

Here's the fix I applied to get this to render properly:

Step 1 Was a CSS fix found on asp.net.
Add the following to the ReportingServices.css file (by default, it's found in "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.3\Reporting Services\ReportManager\Styles\"):

 /* Fix report IFRAME height for Firefox */

.DocMapAndReportFrame
{
    min-height: 860px;
}

Step 2 Was an ASPX fix found on a TechNet Forum.

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.3\Reporting Services\ReportServer\Pages\ReportViewer.aspx

Add info to the <RS> tag style property

<RS:ReportViewerHost style="display:table; margin: 0px; overflow: auto" ID="ReportViewerControl" runat="server" />

Works like a charm!

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My First Google SketchUp

I've just finished my first Google SketchUp animation!

Here's what was involved:

• Download and install Google SketchUp (5 minutes)
• Review the introduction and get acquainted enough to get going on my own (60 minutes)
• Convert an Illustrator vector version of our logo to an AutoCAD file that could be imported by SketchUp (30 minutes).
• Initially the paths weren't being imported properly.
• I had to remove some groups and compound paths from the Illustrator logo file.
• Searched the help files a bit and figured out I needed to go into the program preferences and enable some built in add-ons to help me finish my drawing (30 minutes).
  
• Added some depth to the drawing in SketchUp (45 minutes)
  
• Figured out how to add scenes and create an animation (45 minutes)
• Fiddled around with the export settings to turn the animation in to a QuickTime video that was the right size and shape (40 minutes)

Total time from starting the download, to writing this post: 4 hours and 15 minutes.

SQL Reporting Services - 401 Error & rsLogonFailed

We've been using SQL Reporting for awhile now.
Accessing the reports was done by going to http://localhost/ReportServer/

I recently wanted to delete an existing report and to do that needed to access the report server management at http://localhost/Reports/
At this point I was getting a 401 error and could not access the control panel.

This was resolved by adding a registry key to disable a loopback security check that had been implement by a Windows Server Service Pack.
Step by step instructions to fix this issue are available here:
http://aspadvice.com/blogs/ssmith/archive/2007/02/09/SQL-Reporting-Services-401-Error.aspx

One of my earlier troubleshooting steps had been to use Reporting Configuration Manager to update the Unattended Execution Account.
I entered a user with a high level access.  That didn't do anything to fix by 401 issue (eventually solved using the instructions above).  But I never went back to remove the service execution account.

Going back to run the reports that had previously been running fine, I was now getting this error...

Logon failed. (rsLogonFailed) Logon failure: unknown user name or bad password. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x8007052E)

Other solutions offered that the username / account I was using to run the reports was wrong.  However, these reports had been working fine prior to me fiddling that unattended execution account.

I got my rsLogonFailed issue resolved by completely disabling the Execution Account.  This was fine for the reports that we need to run.

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Getting Rid of a Large SQL Log File

I comes up about once a year where I've come across a database with a log file that has grown too big and shrinking the database doesn't do anything.

To make sure I have a reference for what to do the next time this happens... Here's what's involved in emptying out a large SQL log file:

• Go to the options of the database and change the recovery mode to Simple
• Run a full database backup.
• Run a database Shrink -> Files
• Choose the transaction log to shrink
• Check off the option to reorganize the file and then release the free space
• Execute the Shrink command
• Set the database back to Full recovery mode
  

In this case the database that had the large log file was the subscriber to a replicated database.  Since the publisher was being backed-up there wasn't much need to set the database back to full recovery mode.

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vCard Splitter

I recently wanted to export a group of contacts from Address Book on the Mac to Outlook in Windows.

The only way to export contacts from the Mac is to "Export Group as vCard". This creates one vCard file that has multiple contacts in it. It's a pretty straight-forward and easy process. The resulting file can be easily attached to an email and sent to someone else.

The tricky part is that Outlook doesn't recognize that there are multiple contacts in the one vCard.

Enter vCard Splitter. vCard Splitter is a Mac utility that will take the single vCard and split it into individual vCards which you can then drag and drop into Outlook.

Note: I found a Windows utility by the same name, but it crashed when I launched it.

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Wrong Computer Name (Host) in Terminal

File this under "quick fix"...

For awhile now I've been noticing that the host name for my computer has been wrong when I open a new Terminal window in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard).

Figuring this had something to do with DNS, I logged into the Windows 2003 Small Business Server that runs our network. The forward zone had my ipaddress and computer name correct, but the reverse zone had the wrong computer name for my ipaddress. The computer name that was listed was in fact the name that I saw in my Terminal window.

I modified the PTR record in the reverse zone for my ip address and gave it my NETBIOS name.

Closed my Terminal window back on the mac.
Problem solved.

I'm not sure what caused this issue to start with, but if it happens again I'll dig deeper into that.

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Safari inline PDF files (Part 2)

I originally blogged about this about 6 months ago. 

Since then I've discovered a few things have changed.

This tag now works in Safari for displaying an inline PDF.

<object data="pdffile.pdf" type="application/pdf"></object>

If you care... here's the background:

I was using this code:

<object classid="clsid:CA8A9780-280D-11CF-A24D-444553540000">
<param name="src" value="pdffilename.pdf">
<embed src="pdffilename.pdf" width="200" height="300"></embed>
<noembed>PDFs are not supported by your browser.</noembed>
</object>

This was working almost across the board - provided that you had the Adobe PDF Viewer plugin installed on your Mac.
This was not working for Firefox on the Mac.

Recent tests show that this code doesn't work any more and the snippit I gave at the beginning of this post solves the problem.

Firefox on the Mac is still unhappy with trying to pull of inline PDF files.

Apparently this plugin will solve that issue. However, I haven't tested that myself.

My solution was to do some browser detection and give people a link to download the pdf if they are using Firefox on the Mac.