Category: Microsoft

How to set the SRV records for Office 365 with Fasthosts

Office 365 requires 2 SRV records set in the DNS for full Lync capability. It is not obvious how to set the correct SRV settings in Fasthosts advanced DNS configuration page as there is no Protocol field to fill in.

It turns out you need to append the protocol to the host name as follows.

Host Name Points To Port Weight Priority
_sipfederationtls._tcp sipfed.online.lync.com 5061 1 100
_sip._tls sipdir.online.lync.com 443 1 100

For full details see https://help.fasthosts.co.uk/app/answers/detail/a_id/1727/~/introducing-dns-srv-records

Visual Studio Data Tools Schema Compare does not work against Basic edition SQL Azure databases

Before you spend any time banging your head against the wall on this, please note that SQL Data Tools schema comparisons do not work against SQL Azure Basic databases. It will fail with some kind of timeout error. Do not be tempted to start messing with your default SQL timeouts. The default is already 60 seconds and thats plenty of time for almost everything you will encounter.

To change your edition (and there are many reasons to, not least point in time continuous backups and geo replication), you will need to go to the Scale tab on your database and select at least a Standard subscription type.

 

Azure Mobile Services prompt for login when clicking on ‘try it out’

Could not work out how what to do about this, but found this solution (http://blogs.msdn.com/b/musings_on_alm_and_software_development_processes/archive/2014/10/23/azure-mobile-services-prompts-you-for-a-username-and-password.aspx).

Use one of your access keys in the password field, leaving the username blank.

Then you can browse to the /help url for your mobile service.

Getting access to and using Visual Studio code snippets with Resharper installed

When you first install Resharper, your Visual Studio code snippets are imported into Resharpers ‘Live Templates’. This is all very well until you install, update or create new Visual Studio code snippets.

If you have ever wondered how to use the Visual Studio code snippets when you have Resharper installed then here is the quick solution.

Press CTRL+J and then start typing the code snippet shortcut you are after. You will now see the list of available Visual Studio code snippets.

You can find this mentioned here http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/webhelp/Templates__Applying_Templates__Inserting_Imported_Code_Snippets.html

Finding missing indexes and quick optimising of SQL Azure

If you are looking for a quick way to improve your SQL Azure performance then you can check to see if SQL Azure has determined if any useful indexes are missing.

In SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) run the following against your database

select * from sys.dm_db_missing_index_details

This will output something like (I have obscured some sensitive names)

 

For example, the above suggested I made the following indexes on AccessNoXRefs table.

For more information see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/ms345434.aspx and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/library/dn133166.aspx

Bing Maps Preview has unbelievable 3D detail

 

I have been looking at the Bing Maps Preview Windows 8 App and checking out it’s 3d data. The image quality and model accuracy is breath taking. When I was developing GIS apps we would have killed for this kind of detailed LIDAR data. Have a check for free.

Here are a couple of images at 50% which should give you an idea.