SkyDrive , My Fav!!

As of today the business model of Skydrive changes. The most significant change is the paying options and the downgrade from the comfortable 25Gb to 7Gb online storage. What did you just say … downgrade? That’s right, downgrade. But not to fear, you can still regain your 25Gb , even for free. The reason for the downgrade  is that Microsoft  probably is “hunting down” static accounts to regain online storage and to optimize current storage soltions. But that’s just a hunch. so feel free to comment on that.

But more important how can one regain his/her storage. Well fairly easy, but it seems that it doesn’t apply for all accounts, so don’t shoot me if this doens’t apply to your account …

1. log in to http://skydrive.live.com
2. on the “home page” you get an option for returning happy customers to get a free upgrade (underneath the add files toolbar)
3. once selected you’ll get underneath screen, were you can easily select a free upgrade to 25Gb and even upgrades to the paying options for those who want extra storage

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(Azug.Announce(“Azure Saturday”) == Fun) = True

As a proud Azug Crew Member I’m happy to announce an Azure/fun packed Saturday with a cherry on top (or rather a barbecue in this case :-) ).

So ready to dive into code? Have a cool Windows Azure idea and want to work on it in a small team? Now is the right time to kick-start your cloud solution and convince the other attendees of its value. We’ll start early and code the entire morning. Build a killer cloud service, a killer mobile app backed by Windows Azure, whatever! And enjoy a tasty barbecue afterwards!

And the best idea, or the best application will even win some very cool prizes (more on that later :-), but it will be tha bomb, and that’s a promise!)

so if you feel up to it, have nothing planned on June 2nd then feel free to join us (for a small fee in the BBQ area): http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3356267687

Hope to see you all there and then :-)

life.simplify(“Goeleven.com”);

Every once in a while you stumble upon some real useful applications

Every once in a while you stumble upon some real useful applications and or websites. For a while now I’m using a tool called Goeleven.com. It is a “social website” which allows you to simplify your life and this by means of delegation and task management.

The concept is fairly simple: you add everything that’s on your mind to the site, create some tasks for and then you can start delegating if you have some people in your network which might have exactly that experience or knowledge that you need for the task.

Next to that you can buy extra services in the future to help simplifying your life even more (like for instance ironing services, lawn services, grocery services, etc …)

So actually we can call Goeleven.com the first applied TaaS (Time as a Service).

There’s actually 3 reasons why I blog about this :

• First of all : just because it’s something really helpful and useful, it really works
• Second of all: because it has Azure written all over it. It uses a lot of the Azure platform (things like ACS, Compute, Storage, etc … )
• And third of all (but not least of all) it is written by a swell guy I happen to know, Yves Goeleven (@yvesgoeleven)

The good news is that this service comes for free in a community edition, but of course with limited functionality. It gets more interesting when you’re having one of the paying versions. For now only the Community and the Personal edition are available, but there will more options available in the somewhat near future. There’s also plans for an API set and apps you can purchase.

For more info: check out  goeleven.com  and start simplifying your life and take back what you need most: free time!

TFS 2010 + SQL Server 2012 = a no go (for now)

I was setting up a demo environment with SQL Server 2012 , Sharepoint 2010 and TFS 2010 (not DEV11)     To my surprise there seems to be no support for SQL 2012 when it comes to SSAS and SSRS: so no Reporting integration part when doing an advanced setup. Unfortunately I was not able to find an official statement on the matter or even a solution.

So far the system requirements only state SQL 2008 R2 SP1 tops , so implicitely no SQL 2012 yet. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg265786.aspx

SQL Server 2012 Generally Available

As an addition to previous post, don’t forget boys and girls that SQL Server 2012 is generally available since Tuesday April 3rd 2012 (for MSDN and TechNet lovers it has been around for a little while longer now).

Just my €0.02 ;-)

Reminder to self: installing StreamInsight

Every single time when you install StreamInsight, the installer comes asking for a product key. But what if your installers come from sources like MSDN or TechNEt subscriber downloads? Most of the time your installer come with pre-bidded keys and you don’t find a key on you product keys page.

When you find yourself in this situation then all you have to do is (if you haven’t already) mount the DVD/ISO/other SQL Server Installation Sources and navigate to either the x86 or x64 folder and open the DefaultSetup.ini file. all you then need to do is to locate the PID section and there’s your product key :-)