Silverlight SSAS analyzer

Awesome project on google code... all that's missing right now is graphing  :

http://code.google.com/p/ranet-uilibrary-olap/

would post a review once I use it ... right now still "mastering" silverlight .... i like to read lots of books before I start coding on something new (after an initial dip ofcourse!).

PS: Here are some commercial Silverlight SSAS tools I found:
http://www.syncfusion.com/products/business-intelligence-edition
And the VERY promising :
http://olaponline.radar-soft.com/RiaOLAPGrid.aspx




Right now I am reading:

Pro silverlight 3 in c# 2008
Foundation of expression blend 3 with silverlight

so it may be some time.

Silverlight physics library

Continuing my research into all the available useful tools and libraries for silverlight programming I came across this:

http://www.codeplex.com/PhysicsHelper

Seems highly promising!

Server side paging in a Silverlight datagrid

Awesome post :
http://blogs.msdn.com/brada/archive/2009/07/17/business-apps-example-for-silverlight-3-rtm-and-net-ria-services-july-update-part-8-wcf-based-data-source.aspx

Thought I will post it here for when I need it.

Colors for Thematic Maps

Colors play a vital role in the effectiveness of thematic maps. Get the colors wrong and the thematic is pointless. Fortunately colorbrew makes it easy for upto 12 data values:
http://www.personal.psu.edu/cab38/ColorBrewer/ColorBrewer.html
and now a version 2:
http://colorbrewer2.org/

Noob Misinformation upon migration from Access to SQL Server

In access using a single table for getting complicated queries , it is not uncommon to see loads of temporary queries.
However in SQL server you have the feature of "Derived tables" which are basically SQL Selects embedded / named and reused in a larger query. You can still use views ( Stored queries in SQL Server) for performance benefits but to keep things clean don't make too many views if they are just going to be a part of some cooler query and you think that views help understand better. They don't (generally they just get cluttered) and derived tables are so much cooler :).

Sql query inside an sql query for peace of mind :)  and you know immediately how its being used.

Read more here :
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/articles/per/derived_temp_tables_p1.aspx
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1042

Enjoy!.

Unable to modify table. Timeout expired.

If you add a column to huge table using ssms you may get this error:

"Unable to modify table.   Timeout expired.  The timeout period elapsed prior to completion of the operation or the server is not responding."

Simple solution : Tools > Options -> Designers

Set the time out to some large value in seconds (default is 30 which is half a minute) .I like 600 (6 minutes) for the sizes of data that I deal with.

Do note that you will not be notified of any errors till the end of this duration (e.g. sudden network drops). SSMS will also hang for the entire duration. Be patient and don't over do the value unless you intend to leave it working overnight :)

Enjoy!