Nokia Lumia 920 Observations

There is a ton of interest in the new Lumia 920, however thought I would add a few thoughts of my own.

In the past years I have gone from:

1. HTC TYTN 2 (Windows Mobile 6.5)
2. Apple iPhone 3
3. Samsung Galaxy SII (Android ICS)

So I decided to jump back into the Microsoft ecosystem. Generally speaking this is a fantastic device, and the relativity heavy weight is not an issue for me. If you don’t like weight then consider a Samsung Galaxy SIII instead.

Missing apps:

• Pleco : This is a really useful Chinese character / dictionary application for Android . No plans to release for Windows Phone.
• Google Maps: Nokia Maps is for the most part comparable, however I’m surprised that Hong Kong station exits are not marked. (i.e. I can see there is an exit near my destination, however there is no way of knowing which letter it is) I could still use Google Maps through the web browser if I wanted though.

Apps with strange behavior:

• SkyDrive: Great SkyDrive browsing, but no way to save the files onto my phone?
• Nokia Maps: The incomplete subway exit markings (as above)
• Twitter: Official app always scrolls to the top of your timeline, not from where you left off. (MetTweets is better)
• FaceBook: Works, although noticeably less responsive than Andriod version
• Lync 2010: Cannot join meetings. I’m not sure if this is a problem with my phone or my company’s Lync Server.

Good apps:

• XBox Podcasts: I don’t have an XBox, however the Podcast facility is far better than ‘Google Listen’ for Android or iTunes for iPhone.
• Outlook: Just integrates perfectly.
• Skype: Far better experience than with the Android version. Experience for the other (PC) caller is improved greatly, although displayed screen shape is a little strange.
• MetTweets: Best Twitter client I have found so far

Interface Issues:

• URL bar too close to the Windows buttons: When typing a URL I often hit the Windows key by mistake. 
• Switch between Wifi / 3G mode: I like to turn off my phone data plan when at home. The Lumia doesn’t have an easy way to do this, whereas even the iPhone 3 from 2007 has a quick way to turn on and off. I’m currently using an App called ‘Power Tool’ that makes this slightly easier.

Interface Strengths:

• Bluetooth: This is the first device where Bluetooth has worked seamlessly for me. Even the Galaxy SII required a degree of persuasion to get my Bluetooth headsets to work. The Lumia 920 just works.

RDP into Windows 2012 client from Windows 8 host

I’m generally loving my Hyper-V capability under Windows 8, however for some reason I was unable to RDP into my new Windows 2012 virtual machine despite enabling remote access.

I discovered that there is a an extra option in the default firewall settings you need to enable if your host machine is not part of the same domain.

Since my laptop does not belong to any domain, I just ticked the ‘Public’ check box and all is fine.

 

 

SharePoint 2013 PowerPivot Install Issue: “Please install SharePoint before you install PowerPivot for SharePoint”

I wanted to try out the latest stack of SharePoint software from Microsoft, so I downloaded:

1. Windows Server 2012 Essentials (for Domain Controller)
2. Windows Server 2012 Standard
3. SQL Server 2012 Enterprise
4. SharePoint Server 2013 Enterprise

I installed SharePoint Server 2013 first, and then Installed the PowerPivot SQL Server option. I soon discovered an error in that SQL Server was looking for SharePoint 2010 as an installation check:

“Rule “SharePoint installation requirements for PowerPivot for SharePoint” failed.  SharePoint Server 2010 is not installed on this computer.  Please install SharePoint before you install PowerPivot for SharePoint”

• Disclaimer:The following Registry hack will likely result in an UNSUPPORTED installation of Microsoft SharePoint 2013. I publish it solely for use in your development environment. If you need to install a Production environment, then I suggest waiting for a fix from Microsoft.

I found a way past this with help from @spjeff :

http://www.spjeff.com/2012/07/19/fixed-sharepoint-2013-rule-sharepoint-installation-requirements-for-powerpivot-for-sharepoint-failed/

However I still had an install issue:

Since @SPJeff was installing a preview version, I also had a look at Process Monitor from SysInternals and discovered:

So there were lots of prerequisites missing from my registry.

I went to an another server that had SharePoint 2010 Enterprise installed and exported the following keys:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\WSS] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\Secure] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\WSS\InstalledProducts] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\14.0\Secure\ConfigDB]

I the ran the REG files back on my SharePoint 2013 machine, and it all began to work:

The actual Registry files I used are embedded in the document below.

Use the following Registry files at your own risk.doc

(Please note that this fix probably doesn’t need all of these Registry entries, however I just grabbed everything to get around this quickly. You can probably delete after you have installed SharePoint 2013)

Connect to SQL Server on the Amazon Cloud

Amazon Web Services (AWS) are offering an instance of SQL Server Express for free. This is a great way to try out the service and see if it works for your scenario.

After you sign up (credit card required) you are able to provision an instance quite quickly. Note my highlighted Red box that contains the endpoint of the SQL Server instance.

 

Then all you have to do is setup the security group and specify the IP of the machine attempting to reach the instance. Amazon makes a suggestion based on the machine making the request.

 

You can now connect to your instance from SQL Server Management Studio. (Note that the instance is SQL Server 2008 R2)

You can then use it as any other SQL Server instance.

 

 

ESRI Maps ASP.NET Example Update

Two years ago I created an ASP.NET project with integrated ESRI maps and placed on CodePlex:

Original Post:

http://andrewwhitten.wordpress.com/2010/05/18/esri-javascript-api-integration-with-asp-net/

CodePlex Home:

http://esrijsexamples.codeplex.com/

Turns out the fun part of developing against public web services is that they can change over time. Not really a problem in this case since ESRI provide examples for the benefit of the community, not for business use.

I included the javascript changes in the ESRI example into mine, and it all works fine again now.

Self Service Reporting with Power View and SQL Server 2012 Analysis Services

Power View is generating quite a bit of excitement, promising to finally hand the power of self-service BI to Microsoft customers everywhere.

The first caveat is that it doesn’t yet work with multi-dimensional data. That means if you want to use SSAS as your data source then you will need to install an SSAS instance in Tabular mode. Unfortunately you can’t leverage any multi-dimensional instances you have installed already, it has to be a brand new instance.

This seems like a big limitation, although you should consider whether the new Tabular model is anyhow more suited to your scenario. Very general (and not conclusive) guidelines are:

• You want a model that is easier to build and maintain than Multi-Dimensional cubes
• You want a model that is easier for your end users to understand and query
• You have many different data sources, and you don’t want to build a Data Warehouse to consolidate the data before modelling
• You do not require ‘write back’ functionality to the model
• You do not require advanced Multi-Dimensional functionality
• Your data sets are large, but not extremely large

To get started, create the Adventure Works Tabular Model:

1. You can be a diligent student and set it up following these instructions: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh231691.aspx
2. Or you can just download it: http://msftdbprodsamples.codeplex.com/releases/view/55330

 

Using Microsoft Excel, you can quickly attach to this Tabular model and check that it is working:

 

Then using PowerPivot for Excel, you can create a Pivot Table using the following MDX query: (You can use the visual designer to achieve this)

SELECT NON EMPTY { [Measures].[Reseller Total Sales], [Measures].[Reseller Total Gross Profit] } ON COLUMNS, NON EMPTY { ([Employee].[Last Name].[Last Name].ALLMEMBERS * [Geography].[Geography].[City].ALLMEMBERS ) } DIMENSION PROPERTIES MEMBER_CAPTION, MEMBER_UNIQUE_NAME ON ROWS FROM [Model] CELL PROPERTIES VALUE, BACK_COLOR, FORE_COLOR, FORMATTED_VALUE, FORMAT_STRING, FONT_NAME, FONT_SIZE, FONT_FLAGS

 

 

I can now upload this into my SharePoint PowerPivot Gallery. Now I can can click on the icon ‘Create Power View Report’.

 

I can now design a corresponding Report in Power View:

 

Other users can now produce whatever kind of reports they like. In the example below we have created a ‘sales and profit by country’ bar chart:

 

The end users can now save this as a new report to the Gallery.

 

Conclusion:

I’m concerned that the inability of Power View to use Multi-Dimensional cubes will result in a lot of IT departments not even taking a look as the power it provides. If you have a tabular model then it only takes a few minutes to try out, but almost no-one is going to have a tabular model today! Hopefully using Power View to query existing relational data will at least give a good taste of this functionality, and therefore convince people to give the Tabular model a go.

Maps in SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services

I had a quick play with the map part in SQL Server 2012 Reporting Services. The good news is that is is so easy to try out, that you will reach the limitations very soon without too much of a time investment.

 

When would you want to use a map in SSRS?

• Your data items have locations specified in SQL Server spatial data types.
• You have a limited amount of data to display (roughly less than 100)
• You don’t need your map to be interactive

What scenarios are suited?

• A quick dashboard display
• Embedding in a printed report

What scenarios are not suited?

• Interactive web pages
• Geo spatial manipulation in the Report itself

How do I try this out?

Step 1: Create a table or view with at least one column with the Geography data type.

 

Step 2: Add a new Report (not Wizard) to your project.

 

Step 3: Pull a Map control from the toolbox onto the Report canvas

 

Step 4: In the following dialog box, specify that you want to use a SQL Server spatial query

 

Step 5: Specify the connection to that data source

 

Step 6: Design your query. I made life easy for myself by creating a View, and letting the Report just use that.

 

Step 7: Choose to embed a Bing map into your report, and show the area you want to display. Full global view is fine for me.

 

Step 8: Choose a Basic map visualization. (You can rerun the wizard later if you want to try out something else)

 

Step 9: Specify some last theme items, including whether you want to display labels next to your points on the map.

 

Step 10: That’s all. No go to the ‘Preview’ tab to see how it looks.