I needed a quick avenue to play with Java\JDBC Connection URL this morning.

As I did not have a simple, free JDBC-able Query tool on the machine I was using,I downloaded JaySQL from http://synametrics.com/SynametricsWebApp/WinSQLForJdbc.jsp.

The GUI is a bit difficult to use, but nevertheless configured it to point to my recently downloaded Microsoft’s JDBC Driver - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/sqlserver/aa937724.  It is version 3.0 software and it works well.

Nevertheless, within JSQL I configured the JDBC Connection String and pointed to the DB Server.

But, the tool was just not working it was stuck and not quite working.

So next I tried my more trusted Cross-Platform Database Query Tool, DBVisualizer (http://www.dbvis.com/).

I set up the Driver Manager – pointed at the same JDBC Driver.

And, thankfully, it gave me a much better, cleaner, and revealing error message:

The error message states clearly – Java RunTime Environment (JRE) version 1.6 is not supported by the driver.  Use the sqljdbc4.jar class library…

Thus, configured the Driver Manager to use sqljdbc4.jar

Things worked better.

Now re-intimated with DBViz, I probably should continue using it.

But, to close off, returned to JaySQL…

a] Terminated the existing hung process

b] Re-initiated a new JaySQL process

c] Re-configured the Driver Manager to point to sqljdbc4.jar

And, now things worked better

References:

1. Microsoft & jTDS JDBC driver broken after update to 1.6.0_29
   http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=7105007

2. System Requirements for JDBC
   http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms378422.aspx 

Microsoft – Outlook – v2010 Error – “An Error occurred in the Underlying security system. Not Enough Memory available to complete the command”

The problem might be due to the fact that Outlook is trying to access your profile and attach a digital signature to your message.

To correct:

For current (outgoing) message:

In Outlook 2010:

1] Access the message

        a] By creating a new one
        b] By replying \ forwarding an existing one

2] Click on menu items File \ Info

3] Click on the “Properties” button

3] The “Properties” window appears

    i ] In the “Security” panel, Click on “Security Settings” button

   ii] In the “Microsoft Outlook Trust Center” section, click on “Trust Center Settings” button

d] The “Security Properties” window appears

    i] Un-check “Add digital signature to this messages”

To set default (for all subsequent email messages):

In Outlook 2010:

1] Access Outlook Mail View

2] Click on menu items File \ Options

3] The “Outlook Options” window appears

    a] In the left panel, Click on “Trust Center”

    b] In the “Microsoft Outlook Trust Center” section, click on “Trust Center Settings” button

4] The “Trust Center” window appears

    a] In the left panel, click on “E-mail Security”

    b] In the “Encrypted e-mail” section:

           i] Review the item “Add digital signature to outgoing messages” – You probably want this item un-checked

References:

1. Secure messages with a digital signature
   Applies to: Microsoft Office Outlook 2007
   http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/secure-messages-with-a-digital-signature-HP001230539.aspx

As time goes on it is so difficult to change them.

If you are in the market for new ones, try them out using the following tools:

1. HowSecureIsmyPassword
   http://howsecureismypassword.net/

2. Microsoft – Safety & Security Center - Check your password—is it strong?
   https://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/password-checker.aspx
   
3. Password Strength Checker
   http://passwordstrength.net/
4. Password Strength Checker from TGP
   http://www.hammerofgod.com/passwordcheck.aspx

Had a whale of a time trying to get things lined up as text and images kept getting wrapped around each other.

Finally, figured it out.

Each image’s property needs to be changed depending on the effect one wants.

To effect:

1] In edit mode

2] Select the image by left clicking on it

3] Two picture buttons will appear, select the first one

4] In the “Edit Image” window, choose the “Alignment” option you want

References:

1] WordPress.Com – Image Buttons -
http://en.support.wordpress.com/images/image-settings/

2] WordPress Tutorial – How to Position an Image and Wrap Text Around an Image Using WordPress

http://mcbuzz.wordpress.com/2007/11/04/wordpress-tutorial-how-to-position-an-image-and-wrap-text-around-an-image-using-wordpress/

Though we had granted read permissions to one of our users via:

   create user [lab\myGoodUser] from login [lab\myGoodUser];
   exec sp_addrolemember [db_datareader], [lab\myGoodUser];

But, still the user upon logging on could not see any of the database objects. Looked everywhere, but no luck. So what to do:

1. Kicked off “Microsoft SQL Server Profiler”
2. Filtered for that user
3. And, captured the sql generated when we refreshed the database object list

The Query we captured looks like:

SELECT

‘Server[@Name=' + quotename(CAST(serverproperty(N'Servername') AS sysname),'''') + ']‘ + ‘/Database[@Name=' + quotename(db_name(),'''') + ']‘ + ‘/Table[@Name=' + quotename(tbl.name,'''') + ' and @Schema=' + quotename(SCHEMA_NAME(tbl.schema_id),'''') + ']‘ AS [Urn],

tbl.name AS [Name],

SCHEMA_NAME(tbl.schema_id) AS [Schema],

CAST(

case

    when tbl.is_ms_shipped = 1 then 1

    when (

        select

            major_id

        from

            sys.extended_properties

        where

            major_id = tbl.object_id and

            minor_id = 0 and

            class = 1 and

            name = N’microsoft_database_tools_support’)

        is not null then 1

    else 0

end         
             AS bit) AS [IsSystemObject],

tbl.create_date AS [CreateDate]

FROM

sys.tables AS tbl

WHERE

(CAST(

case

    when tbl.is_ms_shipped = 1 then 1

    when (

        select

            major_id

        from

            sys.extended_properties

        where

            major_id = tbl.object_id and

            minor_id = 0 and

            class = 1 and

            name = N’microsoft_database_tools_support’)

        is not null then 1

    else 0

end         
             AS bit)=0)

ORDER BY

[Schema] ASC,[Name] ASC

Tried to understand the query, but it was not as easy. So what to do – Take the Easy way – Google….

SQL SERVER Management Studio 2008 can’t list all tables under SQL2005 database

http://www.sqlservercentral.com/Forums/Topic882092-391-4.aspx

In a nutshell:

1. It seems that Management SQL Server Management Studio v2008 has problems when connecting to a v2005 database Instance
2. The problem can be fixed by granting access to ‘view definition’

To grant access to ‘View Definition’

1) Grant ‘View Definition’ to specific object

–grant view definition on all database objects

use [msdb]

GRANT VIEW DEFINITION ON object::[dbo].[DTA_input] TO [lab\mygoodUser];

2) Grant ‘View Definition’ to specific schemas

use [myDB];

–http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187940.aspx

–grant ability to view schema definition

–GRANT VIEW DEFINITION ON SCHEMA::<schema> TO [login];

GRANT VIEW DEFINITION ON SCHEMA::dbo TO [lab\myGoodUser];

3) Grant ‘View Definition’ to specific database

–http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173848.aspx

–grant ability to view database definition

–GRANT VIEW DEFINITION ON DATABASE::<database> TO [login];

GRANT VIEW DEFINITION ON DATABASE::[myDB] TO [lab\mygoodUser];

4) Grant ‘View Definition’ to current database

–GRANT VIEW DEFINITION TO [login];

GRANT VIEW DEFINITION TO [lab\mygoodUser];

5) Grant ‘View Definition’ on all databases

–grant view definition on all database objects

GRANT VIEW ANY DEFINITION TO [lab\mygoodUser];

The problem appears to be with sys.tables. 

Data returned from this table is governed based on user’s permission granted via ‘view definition’.

To validate issue query ( select * form sys.tables) against sys.tables and results will vary depending on permissions.

The error will not be a hard-error \ fault, but a bit more subtle.

More data:

1. The problem is confirmed in MS SQL Server v2005 Engine when accessed via MS SQL Server – v2008 – Management Studio
   
2. There is a MS Connect Article that is created:

   Tables Node Does Not Show All Schemas In SSMSE 2008 by Nicholas Piasecki
   
   https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/387616/tables-node-does-not-show-all-schemas-in-ssmse-2008

Another self betrothed Insomnia Night.

Started off last night.  Went online looking for a nice dinner to take the old lady.
Found a bunch in San Francisco, but wasn’t so sure as I knew the local team is
playing for the NFC Championship and so places might be crowded or we
might just get caught in Traffic.

Tried to float riding Bart.  But, newly done hair and rain does not work for
most ladies.

And, so make a long story short, visited “Check Please SF” (http://blogs.kqed.org/checkplease/) and checked out a bunch
of restaurants.

Made a good long list with web sites, phone numbers, and hours
of Operations; especially for Sunday Nights.

Next in line is to print – Connected to printer server using UNC (\\myprintserver\hplaserj).

But, no printer drivers, etc.

Stupid error messages:

Windows can't find a driver for HP LaserJet 2100 PCL6 on the
network.
To locate one manually, click OK. Otherwise, click Cancel and
consult your network administrator or the printer manufacturer's
website.

Visited Control Panel, Device Manager and tried to add printer manually:

1. Control Panel \ System \ Device Manager
2. Once in “Device Manager”, clicked on menu items “Add Legacy Hardware”
3. In the “Add Hardware” window, choose to “Install the Hardware that I manually select” — This is only option as printer is not physically connected to laptop
4. In the “Common hardware types” window, select “Printers”
5. In the “Choose a printer port” choose LTPI, unless you are using your printer is accessible via network and you have a TCP/IP Address and port, etc”

See – “HP LaserJet 2100″ is not listed.

Tried the “HP LaserJet 2200 Series PCL 5″, but no luck.

Tried various iterations accessible via “Have Disk”; especially after downloading PCL5 and PCL6

The generic PCL5 & PCL6 Drivers are available via:

HP Universal Print Driver for Windows PCL6

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=3271552&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=503548&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=4063

HP Universal Print Driver for Windows PCL5

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=18972&prodSeriesId=25469&swItem=ds-99378-2&prodNameId=14914&swEnvOID=4063&swLang=8&taskId=135&mode=4&idx=3

But, still no joy.

Also read a bunch of relevant links:

HP LaserJet, Color LaserJet, and LaserJet AiO/MFP Products -

Install the driver included in the Windows 7 operating system (OS)

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c02536257

Windows 7 64 bits driver for HP LaserJet 1200

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-All-in-One-Software/Windows-7-64-bits-driver-for-HP-LaserJet-1200/td-p/221446/page/3

Windows 7 – HP LaserJet 1200

http://www.sevenforums.com/drivers/6206-hp-laserjet-1200-a.html

Win 7 Drivers for Laserjet 2100

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-All-in-One-Software/Win-7-Drivers-for-Laserjet-2100/td-p/257216

But, nothing quite nailed it.

What provided best relieve is:

1) From the run window, Enter the print server name (\\myprintserver)

2) Choose to view “remote printers”

3) Wait until the printers are shown

4) Right click on your printer and choose “properties”

5) In the “Properties” window, access the “Sharing Tab”

6) Choose the “Additional Drivers…” button

7) Ensure that you have selected all the Drivers for each Processor Architecture (x86, x64).

8) For each missing OS (that you need supported), click on the “Add…” button

In our case, the x64 driver was not previously chosen.

You might need Windows 2003 x64 Server, Windows 2008 x64 server CD depending on the OS that is running on your print server.

So go your Print Server, place the Windows 2003 x 64, Windows 2008 x64 CD, etc in your CD plate or install from Network Location.

Once all drivers are installed and available, return to your client workstation, and try connecting to your Network Printer once again.

This time you should receive an option asking whether you will like to “Install Driver”.

Kind of reminds me of “Steve Winwords – Back in the HighLife” again.

References:

Update and Manage Printer Drivers

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732946.aspx

How to: Add 64-bit print drivers on 32-bit Windows Server 2003 or Windows Server 2008 print server

http://blogs.technet.com/b/yongrhee/archive/2009/09/14/how-to-add-64-bit-print-drivers-on-32-bit-windows-server-2003-or-windows-server-2008-print-server.aspx

Installing Windows Vista Print Drivers on Windows Server 2003

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2008/09/19/installing-windows-vista-print-drivers-on-windows-server-2003.aspx

How to find a compatible printer driver for a computer that is running a 64-bit version of Windows

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/895612

Windows 7 Compatibility Center

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/compatibility/windows-7/en-us/default.aspx

As in other programming languages & scripting tools needed to invoke another Application.  Be it another script or Application, one occasionally needs to spawn another stand-alone app:

So looked at some sample code and ended up with something resembling

import sys
import os
import tempfile
import popen2
script_contents = 'Echo "Hello World"'
script_file = tempfile.mktemp('.cmd')
file = open(script_file, 'w')
file.write(script_contents)
file.close()

command = r'"%s"' % script_file 

proc = popen2.Popen3(command, True)
proc.tochild.close()
output = proc.fromchild.read()
errors = proc.childerr.read()
status = proc.wait()

print '[DEBUG] OUTPUT: %s' % output
print '[DEBUG] ERRORS: %s' % errors
print '[DEBUG] RETURN CODE: %s' % status

if os.path.isfile(script_file):
    os.remove(script_file)
 

Though, the above script is a bit watered-down it basically does the following:

1. Dynamically generates a payload
2. Creates a temporary file
3. Saves the generated payload unto the temporary file
4. Invokes the Temp file
5. Cleans-up by removing the temp file

As I tried running the app kept getting an error that resembles the error listed below:

Failed to get environment, environ will be empty: (0, 'Failed to execute command
([\'sh\', \'-c\', \'env\']): java.io.IOException: Cannot run
program "sh": CreateProcess error=2, The system cannot find the file specified')

script_file name is: e:\temp\tempfile.cmd

Traceback (innermost last):

File "C:\Windows\TEMP\eqscript1323213519948", line 41, in ?

File "E:\Program Files (x86)\jython\Lib\popen2.py", line 72, in __init__

File "E:\Program Files (x86)\jython\Lib\javashell.py", line 64, in execute

OSError: (0, 'Failed to execute command ([\'sh\', \'-c\', "e:\\\\temp\\\\tempfile.cmd"\']): java.io.IOException: Cannot run program "sh": CreateProcess error=2, The system cannot find the file specified')

Had a bit of difficulty understanding the problem:

1. Was the system having difficulty determining the temporary folder
2. Did we not have access to the temporary folder

To get a bit closer to what was happening behind the scene, commented out the bit of code

that was removing the script file:

Doing so allowed us to preserve the payload and execute the payload file directly (against the OS).

if os.path.isfile(script_file):
    os.remove(script_file)

Ended up the at the same place \ space:

Could not execute due to file not found.

More goggling brought us joy.  The problem is that sometimes one has to explicitly specify the OS.

The clue came from:

Jython – javaos.getenv() gives “Failed to get environment, environ will be empty”
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/245787/jython-javaos-getenv-gives-failed-to-get-environment-environ-will-be-empty

Try to uncomment and change the os setting in the 'registry' file

(it is in the same directory as your jython.jar / i hope)

# python.os determines operating-specific features, similar to and overriding the
# Java property "os.name".
# Some generic values are also supported: 'nt', 'ce' and 'posix'.
# Uncomment the following line for the most generic OS behavior available.
#python.os=None
python.os=nt
# try nt or dos

Once we knew we had to deal with the registry file the next question is what is actual name of the registry file, where should it be placed, what determines where the system looks for it:

The easiest path would have being to go back and read the Language’s documentation, but as always took the laziest path. Googled for it:

Found some help along the way via:

1. “Failed to execute command ([\'sh\', \'-c\', \'env\']): java.io.IOException: Cannot run program “sh”: CreateProcess error=2, The system cannot find the file specified.”
   http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21411513

The registry file:

1. The name of the registry file is registry
2. Review our jython is invoked – In our case jython.bat and make a note of any arguments passed in or initialized

In our case, we created a file named registry and added this lone line:

python.os=nt

Things worked well once we explicitly specified that our OS is Windows.

It is probably that by default the OS is Unix.

But, as Billy Currington said, thank God for good directions, on the way home went back (after the fact) and read the Jython’s FAQ:

http://jython.org/archive/22/userfaq.html#where-s-the-registry-file

The location and name of the registry was a bit clearer.

From one of our servers scheduled reports were not going out.

Reviewed the “MS Reporting Services” log files and noticed error entries that correlated with the date and time reports were scheduled to go out:

Error Entries:

Failure sending mail: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

Full Error Message:

ReportingServicesService!emailextension!3!01/19/2012-15:00:03:: Error sending email. System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
at Microsoft.ReportingServices.EmailDeliveryProvider.EmailProvider.CreateMessage(Notification notification)
at Microsoft.ReportingServices.EmailDeliveryProvider.EmailProvider.Deliver(Notification notification)

Remediation:

Restarted Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services.

HResult 0×80090304, Level 16, State 1
SSL Provider: The Local Security Authority cannot be contacted

Tried with the following NCipher \ SSL Configuration Changes:

1) Check the version and date modified for the file dbnetlib.dll located under c:\windows\system32 in your client . If the date modified is not the same then replace the file with the one from working box.
2) Since you are using nCipher, change the following registry key: HKLM\Software\nCipher\Cryptography\UseModulekeys to 0 and reboot, change it back to 1 and reboot and see if that helps.

3) I can see a number of cases where the issue occur when nCipher is the default CSP. Set SQL Server as the default CSP for the SQL Servers.

4) If the below key is enabled, disable it. This is only for SQL 2008 (which support nCipher) so for other SQL server we need to disable it
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SecurityProviders\Schannel\Protocols\TLS 1.0\Server]
“Enabled”=hex:00,00

But, nothing quite helped until we un-installed the NCipher\nFast Client.

We went this route as  we were no longer using NCipher\nFast on that box.

Sqlcmd: Error: Connection failure. SQL Native Client is not installed correctly.

Of course, Googled and discovered that it is probably a Windows Path issue (manifested by the system picking up a wrong \ mismatched dll).

Errors such as this is common in cases where multiple SQL Server Binaries are loaded on the system.

As a work-around:

1. Review and correct your path
2. Transverse to the folder that contains the version of the sqlcmd that you want and run sqlcmd from that folder

To fix:

1. Un-installed previous Microsoft SQL Server Client