Love/Hate for Microsoft TFS

A little rant about Microsoft Team Foundation Server, a.k.a. TFS: Virtually out of nowhere, Microsoft released an enterprise-class system for developers. It includes version control, (keep track of every change to all your source files, forever) work items (a.k.a. bug tracking), reports, build management (compile and keep track of builds/releases), and tight integration with Visual Studio, the program we use to write and debug a majority of our code.

Overall, I'm a huge fan of the product. We've been using TFS 2005 for over a year, primarily for source control, replacing an instance of SourceGear Vault and Microsoft Visual Source Safe. Writing code against TFS is nearly painless, despite its terse documentation. The API is clean and straightfoward. This is in stark contrast to SourceGear's completely unsupported, messy, undocumented and partially broken API. Not all users have a need to programmatically access TFS, but I've used it a couple times to extend its functionality and do things that you just can't do out of the box.

My beef is how complicated TFS is to install and upgrade. It has dependencies on SQL Server, SQL Server Reporting, Windows Sharepoint, and IIS. It requires a hotfix for .NET as well as SQL Server, and that's after the latest service packs. It requires 3 separate user accounts pre-configured, and this is all before you actually run the TFS Server 2005 installation. Then you can install yet another hotfix and finally TFS 2005 SP1. To be fair, if you can follow the 3-pages of instructions, the installation procedure does work.

BUT, what if you want to move the installation to a different server? Well, the first step is to go through the above installation process on the new server. Then follow a 10+ page procedure to move the databases, reporting services, Sharepoint data and a handful of other little details. To be fair again, this procedure works as written, if you follow it to the letter, and consult the comments at the bottom for a couple steps.

How about upgrading from TFS 2005 to TFS 2008? Well you can start by running the TFS 2008 Server installer which is painless. But if you want to take full advantage of TFS 2008, you have to upgrade Windows Sharepoint from 2.0 to 3.0 which is another 3 page procedure and references its own set of pre and then post-upgrade steps. Then install Visual Studio 2008 SP1 and then TFS 2008 SP1. Lastly, optionally install the Team System Web Access with SP1. If you're feeling up to it, you can now also upgrade the SQL 2005 server to 2008.


Then do it all over again on a weekend because the first run was just a test to make sure you know what you're doing...

Time Warner SDV Again

Shortly after my last post, I submitted an FCC complaint about Time Warner and my distinct lack of a tuning adapter that was promised months before. Just a couple weeks later, Time Warner shipped me a Cisco STA1520 SDV Tuning Adapter. I don't know if the two were related, but I know Time Warner got the message because they responded to me AND the FCC saying the issue was resolved when they "provided a Tuning Adapter on March 17, 2009." Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that. :) The tuning adapter has been working quite well; I think I've only had to reboot it once or twice in the last 2.5 months. Yea for Mythbusters in HD.

SDV and Time Warner

Over 3 months late, it appears Time Warner in SE Wisconsin has begun to put a halt to their Screw-TiVo-Users-By-Switching-Channels-To-SDV-Campaign.

Random Update

Its been way too long since I posted. Here's a bunch of random ramblings. How fitting. This is mostly for the 6 (or so) of you that actually read this via an RSS feed. If you want to know more about any of these rambings, just ask.

• The basement is done. It took way longer than I expected, but it is finally done.
• OSB + laminate flooring = a very nice chair mat.
• Table saws are ridiculously heavy.
• I hit my goal weight and rewarded myself with a ginormous TV. :)
• 5 months later it is in for (in-warranty) repair. :(
• No, I will not be returning my TV or otherwise limiting myself access to it if I go over my goal weight.
• No, I will not be going over my goal weight. I'm currently 9 pounds below it actually.
• Winter feels colder now though.
• I'll be spending my vacation getting Paradox to talk to Quickbooks. Next year I think I'll opt for a cruise instead. :)
• Dishwasher drain pumps are actually pretty easy to replace.
• Time Warner has decided to continue their screw-cablecard/TiVo-users campaign until sometime in 2009. Every week I lose a digital channel or three.

More Hard Drive Woes

After last weekend's attempt to revive my TiVo's hard drive apparently my computer was a bit unhappy. I'm not entirely sure how or when it happened, but sometime this week my 500GB Seagate hard drive decided it was only 128GB.

I know what you're thinking - that's gotta be some lack-of-48bit LBA thing, 128GB/137GB limitation going on. Nope. I'm running XPSP3, the computer is only a couple years old, it is SATA, and there's another 250GB SATA drive in the same computer that was working fine. But the bios saw 128GB and Windows saw a 128GB unformatted NTFS partition. There wasn't anything critical on the drive, but at the same time I didn't want to lose it. It was filled with stuff like MSDN downloads that I could get again if I needed to, but it would have been really time consuming.

A lot of searching around lead me to Seatools for Dos that allows you to set the capacity of the drive. What? Apparently modern hard drives have a "feature" called Host Protected Area (HPA) that allows the firmware of the drive to report itself as less than the full size. Apparently some OEMs use the area beyond this to hide recovery data so that even partitioning utilities can't wipe it out. This feature somehow got enabled on the drive AND the drive's partition table was rewritten with a new one... I'm going to blame one of the many TiVo boot CDs I used trying to get my TiVo's hard drive going again, but I really don't know. Generally I disconnect any extra drives when messing around but I may have missed it once or twice.

A little research revealed several utilities that should be able to clear the HPA setting and restore the drive's full capacity.
Seatools for Dos
MHDD
HDAT2
Hitachi Feature Tool

I tried them all. They all failed. I tried them on a different computer. Fail.

Finally I tried HDD Capacity Retore, a Windows utility. That didn't even see the drives in my computer. So I tried it on that second computer, and it finally worked. Both computers now saw the drive as its full 500GB.

But all was not well. I still had the bogus partition table declaring a single 128GB NTFS partition. After failing to recover any remenants of the correct partition table with several different utilities, I gave up and used a linux boot disk to run fdisk and create the partition table manually. It was a single partition consuming the entire drive before, so I just told fdisk to do that and crossed my fingers. Windows saw the partition but still didn't think it was formatted correctly. However, with the drive the right size I was able to use some file-finding utilities for NTFS to grab the files off and make sure I at least got the data off. Whew.

This is where a "normal" person would've given up, formatted the drive correctly, and copied the data back on it. I saw it as an opportunity to try to recover the drive the rest of the way. :)

Trinity Rescue Kit with Testdisk's "Boot" option was able to find the backup Master File Table (MFT) on the drive and restore it. Windows' chkdsk fixed a couple other problems and the drive is back in operation. File compares and testing the .zip files on the drive show that everything is a-OK.

RIP TiVo S1

As it typically does, a simple task turned into an all day project yesterday. My goal was to swap the old 25" Zenith TV in the bedroom for the 27" Panasonic that recently replaced with a plasma. Simple right?

The TiVo was sitting on top of the Zenith. And the Panasonic isn't flat on top, so I had to build a platform to sit on top of it. A board plus a couple 2x2's and a nice compound angle cut and it was good to go. I even spraypainted the 2x2's black. A bit overkill, but a nice Saturday morning project. I plugged the TiVo back in and it was unhappy. The cachecard startup told me that there was a possible HD failure and it was taking forever to cache the data. Hmmm. Brooke mentioned something about this TiVo not recording suggestions anymore...

With any luck I would be able to copy the data off the drive to another and get it going again. Not so much. Even though I had a spare 122GB drive to replace the 120GB in there, nothing would copy the drive. dd_rescue informed me that it had sucessfully copied 8MB and the rest was unreadable. Other utilities told me about the same.

So, faced with rebuilding the TiVo I decided to swap out the Series 1 (S1) for one of the S2s I've acquired. One was my brother's, who no longer has cable. The other was my dad's - the power supply died on it and I revived it with a new capacitor.

The S2s are faster, more capable machines. Toss a USB network adapter on the back and they can transfer shows between TiVos, download shows off Amazon, etc. It was on my todo list anyway, particularly once I swapped the TVs. The old Zenith doesn't have closed captioning so I had hacked the S1 to overlay it. The Panasonic has CC so there's no need for the TiVo to do it. However, the S2s encrypt the recordings which changes my tried and true method for getting shows (i.e. Good Eats) to DVD. I know it is still possible, but that's a project for another day.

Long, boring story short I ended up getting the S2 running around 2:30am. I had to run guided setup twice (clear all and delete between them,) take the HD out and run an "Acoustic Management" utility on it to quiet the drive's infernal head clicking, and run a cable down the hall to my computer for its PPP connection. A new (quieter) fan has been ordered and my brother is kindly mailing me the USB network dongle so I can get rid of the cable down the hallway.

The S1 will rest (retire?) in peace. Technically it isn't dead - I could toss another hard drive in it and get it running, but what's the point? S2s are basically free these days. Networking, extraction and insertion are now supported features rather than a hack.

Random Notes

The basement is nearing completion. I finally finished mudding, applied texture and primed everything. All that's left is a coat or two of paint, epoxy the floor, trim, and pay someone to carpet, plus some punch-list items like light bulbs and doorknobs. The mudding took WAY longer than expected, but it came out pretty well. However, there were a couple joints that decided to bulge out slightly when the primer was applied. I'm guessing the water in the primer soaked into the mud and losened it, allowing it to expand out of the joint a bit. I think it is fixable, but I'm also fairly sure it wouldn't have happened if I had used the paper tape instead of the mesh. For the paint I'm going to try using a paint sprayer since I already had to tape everything off to do the texture.

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Santa (or rather, my family) was good to me this holiday season:

• DeWalt Jigsaw
• DeWalt 18V reciprocating saw
• A bluetooth headset
• Spiderman 3 DVD
• Indoor / Outdoor weather station
• A pair of Crocs
• Subscription renewal for Cook's Country
• New fall/spring/winter jacket
• I'm Just Here for More Food
• BOCA 2006 CD
• Spyderco knife sharpener
• A duffel bag
• A winter hat with built-in earphones
• A headband
• Random Redken products (conditioner and a mug)
• Lots of clamps

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2007 in review (in no particular order)

• We got a dog.
• I started but did not finish the basement (yet.)
• My company was purchased by another.
• I dove headfirst into Microchip programming and was successful at it.
• We tossed Alltel to the curb and committed to 2 years to at&t, the current "best-of-the-worst" evil wireless companies. So far, no real complaints.
• I put a hole in my house and modded my microwave.
• We bought a lawn mower.
• We bought a new stove and dishwasher.
• I got a new grill for my birthday.
• We bought a fire pit, gazebo and lawn furniture.
• We hosted several get-togethers including a house warming party, a few over the summer and a New Year's Eve (not) party.
• We hired and fired a maid, and are now on our 2nd.
• After a great amount of headache, we finally got window well covers made and installed.
• We drove from NJ to WI with a Penske truck full of furniture from my in-laws.
• I still haven't installed Vista anywhere
• I still haven't sold or given away the old dishwasher or dryer.