Had a hell of a time getting a remote BizTalk 2004 server running windows 2003 to talk to a client running windows xp today. Turns out that Mr. Windows 2003 needs a little tweaking:

On the Windows 2003 server:

1. First disable RPC Security, as shown here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;839187
2. Next, enable network DTC access: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817064&Product=winsvr2003
3. if it is running and client application is not on the same
   computer as the database server, on the computer running database
   server
   1. Go to “Administrative Tools > Component Services”
   2. On the left navigation tree, go to “Component Services >
      Computers > My Computer” (you may need to double click and wait as
      some nodes need time to expand)
   3. Right click on “My Computer”, select “Properties”
   4. Select “MSDTC” tab
   5. Click “Security Configuration”
   6. Make sure you check “Network DTC Access”, “Allow Remote
      Client”,”Allow Inbound/Outbound”, “Enable TIP” (Some option may not be
      necessary, have a try to get your configuration)
   7. The service will restart
   8. BUT YOU MAY NEED TO REBOOT YOUR SERVER IF IT STILL DOESN’T WORK (This is the thing drove me crazy before)

For a Windows XP client:

1. On your client computer use the same above procedure to open
   the “Security Configuration” setting, make sure you check “Network DTC
   Access”, “Allow Inbound/Outbound” option, restart service and computer
   if necessary.

This can only mean one thing: more BizTalk posts are a-comin’……

Stephen Chu, one of my former ThoughtWorks brethren, has posted a great article about using NAnt. You can find it here.

It’s refreshing to see postings like this, especially, as Stephen points out, everyones love affair with Ruby/Rails/Rake. NAnt is still a pretty good tool, and is the build tool of choice for most, if not all, pre 2.0 .NET shops out there and there are a lot.

Jay Fields, another ThoughtWorks brother-from-another-mother, posted a list of Rake links for all those wondering what the fuss over Rake is about. Jay asked me what i thought it would take for Rake to supplant NAnt/MSBuild as the .NET build tool of choice. My answer was the same answer I give to anyone who asks me about introducing a new tool into a teams toolbox. Decisions like those aren’t just technical. Very rarely does the best pure technical solution win out. You have to factor in what introducing the tool means to the team / department / company. For example, replacing NAnt with Rake because you can speed up your build from 10 minutes to 5 minutes may seem like a good idea, but think about the fact that you have to introduce a totally different language, platform, and programming environment to do it.

1. What happens when the Rake champion leaves?
2. What happens if the team has to integrate with a build and release team who are accustomed to using NAnt?
3. What happens when you need to extend Rake to do something it doesn’t and now have to learn Ruby?

I’m not picking on Rake here. I am just saying that decisions need to involve the bigger picture, not just the immediate technical one.

So, I was glancing at the activity stats for my blog, and found this referr:

‘Raising testostorone in men‘

Sure enough, when you type in the above phrase into www.google.com, my blog is the first entry.

Nice….

So, I had a great gadget weekend:

1. I ended up getting a brand new Samsung 50′ inch TV to replace the one I bought in August.
2. I bartered for a new Jabra BT 250 Headset
3. I finally got my Tivo Home Control Cable hooked up.

Now, the strange thing is that the gadget I was the happiest to get ( aside from the working TV ) was the cable. For those of you who don’t know, if you have an external box ( cable, sat, etc.. ) of some sort for your video, you need to allow tivo to control it so that tivo can change the channels and such. This is because you actually hook your sat|cable box up to the tivo, and then the tivo to your tv. Makes sense since tivo will be the one that needs to record the content.

Well, to control the channels on your box, you have two options:

1. Funky IR emitters that stick out like claws and relay IR signals to your box. These suck for many reasons, least of which is that some times things can get screwed up from the tivo to the box, and suddenly tivo thinks it’s on one channel, and your box is on another. Bye bye programming.
2. Serial connection that goes from your tivo to a serial port on some cable boxes. This is nice because you don’t have to worry about interferring with the IR signal. It’s still no ideal because you get a small delay between the when you change the channel on your tivo and when tivo changes the channel on your box. Annoying. Plus, only some cable boxes have serial connections, so it’s far from the common situation.

Well, this weekend I finally figured out the third option that is available. Tivo offers a Home Control Cable, which basically looks like a phone jack on one end and stereo plug on the other. The phone jack end plugs into what is called the ‘Low Speed Data Port’ on most directv boxes and the other end plus into the ‘serial’ jack on the back of the Tivo. The same serial jack that #2 above plugs into.

Well, this is one great cable. Not only does it do away with the crappy IR emitters, but it eliminates the crappy delay in when changing channels. Also eliminated are the funky screw ups when changing channels. My box and tivo no longer get confused or out of sync.

The most joy I ever got from a $6.99 cable.

I released a new version of DotNetMock today, version 0.8.0.

Thanks to Niklas Dahlman for contributing many of the bug fixes found in this release.

Get it here.

My unique fact that is listed on my Amazon Wish List:

“Unique Facts: There is only one Griffin Caprio”

Damn straight…. I feel like I should adopt the ‘Denny Crain’ phrase from Boston Legal. Just to go around saying ‘Griffin Caprio’ in response to questions.

Thought, sadly, my name is on no door.