Creating Google Suggest Style Text Boxes with Visual Basic 2005

History:
I have created a simple tool that makes specific directories for our company when we get a new project in to scan. I have integrated a database to keep the information for searching and billing purposes. When we get updates to the projects I don't want to type everything again, so I looked into changing the text boxes to suggest project names from the database and such.

It really is very simple to do this.
Set the "AutoCompleteMode" of the text box to SuggestAppend (There are other options but this is the one that worked best for me.)

Set the "AutoCompleteSource" to "CustomSource".

In the "Form1_Load" add in the appropiate commands. I will explain this line by line below.

Create a connection to the database.
Dim MyConnection As New OleDbConnection("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=c:\databases\scanning.mdb")

Open the Connection
MyConnection.Open()

Use SQL here to select only unique (DISTINCT) Project Names and Scanning Numbers from the workflow table. Use the open connection above to execute the command.
Dim MyCommand As New OleDbCommand("SELECT DISTINCT Project_Name, DR_Number from Workflow", MyConnection)

Create a data reader and put the data returned from the connection in to it.
Dim MyReader As OleDbDataReader = MyCommand.ExecuteReader()

While the reader is being read populate the Text boxes "AutoCompleteCustomSource" with the unique data returned. The (0) and (1) is because the SQL command above puts the results of the query into an Array. This extracts just column "0" or "1" from the query array.

While MyReader.Read()
txtProjectName.AutoCompleteCustomSource.Add(MyReader.GetString(0))
txtDRNumber.AutoCompleteCustomSource.Add(MyReader.GetString(1))
End While

There may be a better/more efficient way to do this task, but with my simple programming skills it works for me and is very responsive!

Uninstalling SQL Server Embedded Edition (SSEE)

To uninstall the SSEE that comes with WSUS 3 BETA do the following.
For 32-bit Platforms (x86)
msiexec /x {CEB5780F-1A70-44A9-850F-DE6C4F6AA8FB} callerid=ocsetup.exe

For 64-bit platforms(x64/AMD64)
msiexec /x {BDD79957-5801-4A2D-B09E-852E7FA64D01} callerid=ocsetup.exe

*However, the removal of the application may not remove the default .mdb and .ldb files, which will cause a subsequent WSUS 3.0 installation to fail. These files can be deleted from the %windir%\SYSMSI\SSEE directory.

These instructions where found on Microsoft Web Site.

Issues with Windows Update Services 3 Beta

While trying to troubleshoot our WSUS 3 Beta install today I found a long list of issues with the beta. I now know why our installation failed and the date it failed.

Issue 6: Remote SQL limitations and requirements
WSUS 3.0 offers support for running database software on a computer separate from the computer with the rest of the WSUS 3.0 application.
• You cannot use a server configured as a domain controller for either for either the front-end WSUS server or the back-end SQL server.

My WSUS server is a Domain Controller, WSUS server (our only one at the current time), and it's SQL server. It looks like I will be going back to WSUS 2 for the time being untill I can get this all figured out.

By the way this is a perfect example of why one should not use BETA software in a production environment.

Also it is important to note that the Embedded Edition of SQL Server is not uninstalled when you uninstall WSUS 3 Beta.

Howto Forge

Over the years I have frequently looked up "Howto" do something. Then recently I noticed a trend. Most of the "Howto's" I was viewing were on Howto Forge.

Howto Forge is mostly for Linux and variants of BSD. They break things down to the OS and then also to specific software, such as Apache, DNS, sendmail, and other common *nix applications/services. I highly recommend this site to anyone that is trying to do something for the first time. Also newbies should read over as much of this as possible to get a feel for how things are done.

The one area I wish they had is Howto's for Windows and Windows based applications such as Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft SQL Server. I know there are sites out on the internet that have the content I am looking for, but I would really like to build a Über-IT knowledge site.

The New Blogger!

Today I noticed that my theme was looking a little funny, (I don't read my own blog very often.) so I went looking at some of the different theme options available. Then I noticed a setting to upgrade my theme (which would probably break some stuff). I decided that I don't have that much in the way of customization going on so what the heck.

After the upgrade I was amazed at the simplicity of adding in new content such as AdWords or a RSS feed. It is much the same as using a Personalized Google Homepage. I can create a new page element, move it around, save it, and BOOM my template is updated and ready to go!

I will continue to look around the new Blogger to see what else they have changed on me!

Spiceworks has grown up!

Today Spiceworks has been upgraded to version 1.5!
The biggest (and most requested) feature they brought into this release is Multi-user support. Now my boss has access to the same information that I do. (Weather or not he ever uses it is another story. ;) ) They also now allow users to send an email to a specific email address and have it alert me to a new help ticket. I have started putting all help requests into Spiceworks and any maintenance tasks that I need to do as well for better tracking / record keeping of what I do to specific systems.

I hope that this wonderful product continues to grow and become even better. They have a large (and growing) community of IT professionals requesting features and asking for support with their networks. I have yet to ask a question my self, but I try to browse them in order to help other users.

I have talked about Spiceworks in a past post. For those of you that don't know Spiceworks is Information Technology Management software, but is free to use. It is geared to small companies with less than 250 devices (like ours, though not by much).

There are a few things that I would like to see come into this software in future versions, but none of them are show stoppers. Also a few of the new features still need some polish put on to them before I would have external (to our company) using this software.

Test driving Microsoft Server Software

Have you ever wanted to see what Microsofts newest software is like, but don't want to muck up your current system? Visit the Microsoft Download Center to download some Virtual Hard Drives of their newest (mostly server) software. You will need to have Microsoft Virtual Computer to enable these Virtual Hard Drives.

Via the link you can test out Microsoft Server 2003 R2, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft Internet Sercurity and Acceleration Server 2006, and Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

For me this is awesome because it allows me to play with this new software before I see it in the enterprise and allows me to become aclamated to it before I start studying for it's certification. Also the temptation to pirate software is no longer there for many IT professionsals since they can get their hands on it legally now.