Visual Studio 2008 went to manufacturing at the end of 2007. Windows Server 2008 is expected to be RTM’d in February. But SQL Server 2008 - the other of the three products Microsoft is slated to launch together on February 27, 2008, in a big corporate event in Los Angeles - is running further behind.

Microsoft officials last year said SQL Server 2008 would likely be released to manufacturing in the second quarter of 2008.

But in a blog post on January 25, SQL Server Director of Product Management Francois Ajenstat said that the new date for SQL Server 2008’s RTM is some time in the third quarter of this year.

Microsoft is excited to deliver a feature complete CTP (Community Technology Preview test release) during the Heroes Happen Here launch wave and a release candidate (RC) in Q2 calendar year 2008, with final Release to manufacturing (RTM) of SQL Server 2008 expected in Q3. Our goal is to deliver the highest quality product possible and we simply want to use the time to meet the high bar that you, our customers, expect.

Ajenstat emphasized the SQL Server 2008 delay - the reasons for which he did not detail - will still go on as planned on February 27.

In order to speed up its SQL Server development process, Microsoft has been testing SQL Server 2008, code named “Katmai,” via a series of CTPs, rather than more traditional betas. Microsoft released a first SQL Server 2008 CTP in June 2007.

Shame that they've delayed the new version as I was really looking forward to installing it on the new server. ON the other hand; the new server will likely not be online until the end of summer. Until then it will most probably be:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008: Your Data, Any Place, Any Time (... just not right now )

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Today I came across this article by Sarah Perez, on MSDN's Channel 10. As stated in one of my earlier posts I use Windows Live Writer for creating and editing the things I post to my blog. After reading Sarah's aforementioned article I installed a few of the plugin's she recommends and I was immediately fascinated by Rahul Soni's Social Bookmarking plugin. Not only is this a very extensive plugin supporting twenty different social bookmarking services but he has also written a very good tutorial on how to use and customize his creation to use with your own blog. I've tried a couple of plugin's mentioned in Sarah's post but you can see the result of Rahul's plugin at the bottom of this post. I find this to be a very nice add-on for my blog and although I still have to learn the basics of this 'social bookmarking' thing I will start using it ...

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Al Nyveldt - one of BlogEngine.NET developers - has just recorded two installation guides for BlogEngine.NET 1.3; one for general setup and one for using the SQL provider.They are both excellent and should take care of all issues regarding installation and setup.

A must see for all of you who would like to try BlogEngine.NET yourself. Check it out!

• General installation guide
• SQL provider guide

I've used his previous version of the SQL provider webcast to setup this blog to connect with SQL Server. I probably would've succeeded without it but it just made connecting to the SQL Server a lot easier as I could actually see (instead of read) what had to be done.

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What is this website? What does it run on and with which techniques?

My website is (luckily) nothing like the picture on the left; it runs on a fairly simple webserver. It is basically my old PC on which I installed Windows Server 2003 R2. At first I wanted to run Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7 but unfortunately my old machine wasn't to happy with the prerequisites those two made ...

Ever since I started experimenting with all kinds of Internet related technologies, I've wanted to run my own webserver. I've always had networked PC's and at some points I even connected a server to my network but the dream of running my own webserver that hosted my own domain - and not just a redirect - remained. And even though the Medion PC has been retired for over three years it was only last September or October that I decided that I would be running my own webserver.

As I am a Microsoft fan and its technologies I wanted to learn how to run Internet Information Server (IIS) and SQL Server, learn how ASP.NET actually worked and do all programming with Visual Studio. Running my own webserver also had to do with the fact that I did not find a webhosting company that would offer such services for free. Although I know there are some incredible clever solutions available, if you put the above into perspective you will probably see why I wasn't interested in PHP and mySQL.

So how did I actually setup my old PC to run this website? Well ... here goes:

On the hardware side the webserver is a Medion MD 3001 mini tower, which I have used as my main computer for a year or two before I bought the Dell Dimension I currently use. I bought the Medion in 2002 when it was on sale at our local Aldi Supermarket for around €550. Buying that computer for that price and at that time was a really good deal considering its specs. It's mainboard is a rebranded MSI 6513 which runs the Intel 845D chipset. The processor is a Pentium 4 running at 2.0 Ghz. There's 512 MB of RAM onboard the server. I know 512 MB of RAM is not much but I will be replacing the server this year with my current PC as I want to buy a new PC this year. Therefore I do not wish to invest in RAM, although I know it is relatively cheap.

There are two (120 & 80 GB) hard drives in the server. The first is divided into three partitions; C for the Operating System, D for all applications and E for all 'My Documents'. The reason for these partitions is that I want to separate the Operating System from the other 'vital' parts of the server - not considering the websites data which is on the other physical drive. If the server fails I can do a reinstall on the C drive while keeping all the data on the other partitions. Although I would still need to reinstall all the applications that are installed on the D drive, I still have all the data on the D drive. The same goes for the 'My Documents' drive. Like I said the website's data is on another physical drive which is divided into partitions too of which one is labeled as webserver.

On the software side the setup is as follows:

Internet Information Server 6 comes with Windows Server 2003. The interface you are looking at is a template made by Arcsin which is a small media company founded and run by Viktor Persson. The template is adapted by RazorAnt, the alter ego of Al Nyveldt. Al is one of the developers of BlogEngine.NET, which is - as the name already suggests - the blogengine to this website. The blog is connected to SQL Server so everything I write here is stored in a database and every blog page you request is generated dynamically. No static pages in here ... well, at least not yet. The main website that I am building around this blog will probably have a few static pages but they might be dynamically generated too ...

I use Microsoft Visual Web Designer Express for designing and developing this website. The website as you see it now is basically just a free template that I did not adapt and is exactly how Viktor and Al designed it. But the website that I am designing around this blog will have a completely different look and feel. It will most probably feature a glass inspired GUI (Graphical User Interface) and will be more colorful.

As far as blogging goes I am using the aforementioned BlogEngine.NET with Microsoft SQL Server Express 2005 in the background. As a front end I am using Microsoft Windows Live Writer, which I find to be a great editor for my blog without having to log onto the website first. It is a full featured, flexible and easy to use editor with which I can publish directly to my blog but also edit existing blog entries in case I made a mistake ...

Of course when everything is up and running I want it to stay up and running and not loose anything when something bad happens. The same as with the website, I am still building the server. Apart from my own website I also want to host www.arthurkoning.nl, my son's website and www.hawkinsstraat.nl, a community website for the street I live in. So I need to have all that data backed up on a daily basis. I am still investigating different backup solutions but for now I am using Microsoft SyncToy as it is really simple and seems to do the trick. If you have any useful suggestions please let me know!

So there you go ... you don't need much to run your own webserver.

Thank you for reading and please share your feedback.

Harold

What is its goal and what am I planning to do with it?

I've always found personal websites to be a little boring and basically I found them to be all the same; a short bio, a couple of photographs and a bit of information on the owners hobbies. Of course, exceptions confirm the rule but - for me - things started changing a couple of years ago when phenomenon's like blogs and forums started to gain momentum. Obviously I became interested in blogs and forums. Many of them provided comments, insights or personal views on a particular subject or recent news, while others were more of a personal online diaries. I started to visit some of them on a regular basis.

When reading interesting blog- and forumposts, I always thought that it would be nice for me to have one of those for myself. Like I said before, I never actually saw the use in having a personal website (although I've had a few before) as I really did not know what to put on it apart from some information about me - which nobody was going to read - or a couple of photos -  which nobody wants to see. However, I've spent quite a few years on the Internet now and in a professional working environment so I think I know what is useful ... hopefully.

I didn't put up this website to show you how cool I am. If you like and if you stick around long enough you can learn a little bit about me, though the main reason for starting this website is to create some sort of diary of my wanderings on the Internet; a way to document what I come across and how I look at these things. I don't only want to have a blog but eventually I would really like to share my my experiences with Windows Performance Tuning and of course share my excitement on virtual flying with Microsoft Flight Simulator. While building this site I also would like to get a discussion going on Web Development and learn what you think. I might also share my personal and professional development as it might be of some benefit and you're invited to give constructive criticism and feedback on anything I 'do' here ...

Thank you for reading and please share your feedback.

Harold