reCAPTHCA: fight spam and help digitize books

I just read this article on Ars Technica. I won't go into details here but it's very cool so check it out. And if you have time take a look at this video - it's a lecture by Luis von Ahn (he's mentioned in the article) on harnessing the power of human computation (sounds scary but it's not :)

ZX Spectrum - 25th anniversary

This is what I wanted to blog about today but I'll leave it for some other time now.

Rah

My dearest of all cats, Rah, has died today after a long fight with illness (induced by several poisonings he had over the past year.) Here's a photo from last year taken on the day I let all my cats roam free for the first time:



He was my friend, my companion, my pride and joy. I loved him dearly.

Building Boost 1.34 for x86, x64 and IA64

The new version of Boost library has been released recently. Since we have released ApexSQL Log 2005.04 just the other day, we can now migrate our source base to Boost 1.34. This post will deal with building of Boost static libraries for side-by-side compilation and linking of x86, x64 and IA64 libraries. This is now much easier than it was in Boost 1.33 but there is still some work to be done.

1. Download Boost and Boost.Jam from here.
2. Put Boost.Jam binary into a directory on your PATH.
3. Uncompress Boost library into a directory of your choice.
4. There is an error in one of Boost build files that needs to be fixed before compiling for IA64 architecture:

1. Go to boost_1_34_0\tools\build\v2\tools folder.
2. Open msvc.jam in your favorite editor (mine is by *far* Visual Studio itself)
3. Replace all instances of "x86_IPF" with "x86_ia64" (there should be two)

There is also an omission in the same file and native x64 compiler will be used only on boxes with %PROCESS_IDENTIFIER% matching AMD64. So if you have Intel based x64 CPU build will be done with x86-x64 cross-compiler. It's just slower but the results are the same. If it bothers you, you should be able to fix it easily.

5. Go to command prompt, change directory to boost_1_34 and build Boost library for all three architectures.

• For x86:

bjam msvc architecture=x86 stage

• For x64:

bjam msvc architecture=x86 address-model=64 stage

• For IA64:

bjam msvc architecture=ia64 stage

6. Install x86 libraries:

bjam msvc architecture=x86 install

By default Boost will install its include and lib files into C:\Boost\lib and C:\Boost\include\boost-1_34. The problem with this is that if want to install x64 or IA64 static library files these will overwrite x86 static library files already installed. To avoid this we need to move all x86 static libraries to C:\Boost\lib\x86 (this is my solution - obviously other solutions are possible) so that these aren't overwritten by subsequent installations.

7. Install x64 libraries:

bjam msvc architecture=x86 address-model=64 install

Again, move these libraries from C:\Boost\lib to C:\Boost\lib\x64.

8. Install IA64 libraries:

bjam msvc architecture=architecture=ia64 install

Now move these libraries C:\Boost\lib to C:\Boost\lib\ia64.

9. Adapt your Visual C++ projects so that:

• x86 platform links libraries from C:\Boost\lib\x86
• x64 platform links libraries from C:\Boost\lib\x64
• ia64 platform links libraries from C:\Boost\lib\ia64

That's it! You should now be ready to use Boost libraries for binaries on all three Windows platforms.

Update: Fixed a typo in "For IA64" build statement.

ApexSQL Log 2005.04 released

Yesterday we have finally released 2005.04 version of ApexSQL Log. You can download it here.

Here's the full list of enhancements, changes and fixes:

----------------------------------------------------
RELEASE 2005.04.0453
DATE: 15 May 2007
DESCRIPTION: Medium Enhancement/Fix release
----------------------------------------------------

Enhancements:

- Greatly improved reconstruction of UPDATE operations (MAJOR ENHANCEMENT)
- Greatly improved memory footprint and performance scaling (MAJOR ENHANCEMENT)
- Added support for recovery of VARCHAR(MAX), NVARCHAR(MAX) and VARBINARY(MAX) data types from
database files (MAJOR ENHANCEMENT)
- Improved support for transaction log backups converted from 3rd party backups (MAJOR ENHANCEMENT)
- Added partial reconstruction of changes made to fixed-length fields in UPDATE operations.
- Added partial support for recovery of XML data type from database files.
- Added support for reading SQL Server 7/2000 transaction logs under SQL Server 2005.
- Added support for reading SQL Server 2005 transaction logs under SQL Server 7/2000.
- Added more recovery reports details to recovery scripts.
- Added dummy data to BLOBs that are partially recovered due to lack of data.
- Added "row partially reconstructed" column to SQL, BULK, CSV and XML exports.
- Added "/run_small" switch to command line interface which forces the application not to save
most of intermediate files on the hard drive. If there is less than 5% free space on the drive
the application will switch automatically to "run small" mode.
- Added recovery script path selection to Recovery Wizard.
- Added table mapping to MDF data recovery.
- Improved generated recovery scripts for less-than-perfect data recovery scenarios.
- Improved progress bar during transaction log reading.
- Improved reliability of BLOB recovery algorithm.
- Improved auditing performance in general.
- Improved memory managment when under memory pressure.
- Improved formatting for REAL and DOUBLE SQL types.
- Improved diagnostic logging.
- Integrated client-side and server-side setups into one setup.

Changes:

- Increased drive usage for intermediate and temporary files during auditing/recovery, to approximately
10-20% of transaction log file sizes. If there is less than 5% free space on the drive the application
will switch automatically to "run small" mode thereby saving on drive space.
- Limited export options to exporting every 10th REDO/UNDO script during the evaluation period.
- Limited copy to clipboard for all REDO/UNDO scripts during the evaluation period.

Fixes:

- A set of problems with server-side components running on SQL Server run by non-administrator account (MAJOR FIX)
- A problem with relying on @@SERVERNAME for server name on repeated connections which
blocked re-connections for servers not accessible through their @@SERVERNAME (MAJOR FIX)
- A problem with UPDATETEXT and line breaks in BLOB recovery (MAJOR FIX)
- A problem with double reading of log files during open (MAJOR FIX)
- A problem with recovery of some system table structures (MAJOR FIX)
- A problem with primary key values in SQL export (MAJOR FIX)
- A problem with XML data type recovery (MAJOR FIX)
- A problem with some recovery options not working correctly on remote servers (MAJOR FIX)
- A problem with putting server logs to system32 (or SysWOW64) directories. Now server logs are all in LOG
directory of SQL Server instance.
- A problem with recovery of dropped tables in SQL Server 2000.
- A problem with bad IDENTITY status for some reconstructed tables on SQL 2005.
- A problem with grid refresh if the last transaction was rolled back.
- A problem with clustered index keys not shown for un-reconstructed UPDATE operations.
- A problem with in-row values in NTEXT fields not correctly shown.
- A problem with recovery of BLOB data of NTEXT columns.
- A problem with NVARCHAR(MAX) columns in recovered table structures.
- A problem with some field values not being exported on UPDATE operations.
- A problem with application crashing when trying to write to a read-only file.
- A problem with "File not found" exception when doing recovery from online database files.
- A problem with extended procedure connecting back to SQL Server and being rejected due to lack of permissions.
- A problem with SQL authentication not working correctly when accessing logs from server tree.
- A problem with SQL authentication if invalid user/password entered.
- A problem with a label on SQL authentication user/password window.
- A problem with relying on @@SERVERNAME to start Connection Monitor.
- A problem with temporary UNDO/REDO scripts not having SQL extension.
- A problem with table structure lines not ending with consistent UNICODE line endings.
- A problem with reaching EOF of online database files.
- A problem with declaration of FLOAT data type in generated scripts.
- A problem with duplicate column names in some recovered table structures.
- A problem with duplicate recovered tables.
- A problem with lingering IDENTITY_INSERT state after a generated INSERT with identity fails.
- A problem with inserting NULL field values into NON-NULL columns in some recovery scenarios.
- A problem with application always demanding valid file paths in sysfiles.
- A problem with recovery of tables with timestamp columns in some recovery scenarios.
- A problem with duplicate servers in "Server Activation Center" dialog.
- A rare problem with BLOB data updates being out of range for the current BLOB values.
- A rare problem with not loading all operations in some circumstances.
- A rare problem with command line interface not creating log files correctly.
- A rare connectivity problem on SQL Server 2005.
- A rare problem with activation not working correctly.
- A rare problem with activations on multiple instances of SQL Server 2005.
- A rare problem with NULL values crashing the application.
- A very rare problem with calls to some empty extended stored procedures hanging on SQL 2005.
- A very rare problem with Connection Monitor not resetting on consecutive errors.
- A very rare problem with ApexSQL Server Helper driver sometimes crashing on SMP machines.

As you can see this is a huge release. I have blogged about some aspects of it before here and here.