Tortage: Age of Conan Database

Tortage Age of Conan Database and Reference Site is my next project. I am looking to build a item and quest database for Age of Conan. Age of Conan is a new MMORPG that will be released shortly. I was a World of Warcraft player and I used sites like that all the time.

At this point the game does not support mods. Once they add that ability I believe I can write some data mining mods from inside the game that will automate the process. I bet I can data mine it from the back end, but its so much easier when the program makes the API calls available to you. The advantage the in game mod can provide is location tracking when they pick something up or complete a quest.

Until the support for mods is available I will work on other related projects. One of my first ones is a talent calculator. Someone makes one for every game. This time it may as well be me.

Work has already started. I have purchased the domain name tortage.com and have a server up an going. A place holder page is in place so search engines can start indexing it. The server is a low end Linux box at the moment. When it starts to generate traffic, I plan to find a good host. I would rather save the cost of hosting it for now.

Some of you are asking why the name Tortage. Tortage is the starting are in Age of Conan. Your first 1-20 levels in AOC are spent in that area. It the place where you are introduced to the game and given the information you need to get started. That's the same idea behind the website.

*DNS setting are still getting adjusted, so its possible the site will be dark for the next few days.

Internal error occurred on the report server. See the error log for more details. rsInternalError Get Online Help EXECUTE permission denied on object

I was working with SQL Server Reporting Services subscription and ran into this error:
An internal error occurred on the report server. See the error log for more details. (rsInternalError) Get Online Help EXECUTE permission denied on object 'sp_verify_job_identifiers', database 'msdb', schema 'dbo'.

It looks like a permissions issue. After some searching on the error I found a post over at Karim's Blog with the solution. He provided the a script that adds execute permissions to several objects in the database.

Here is his script:

USE master
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON master.dbo.xp_sqlagent_notify TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON master.dbo.xp_sqlagent_enum_jobs TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON master.dbo.xp_sqlagent_is_starting TO RSExecRole
GO
USE msdb
GO
-- Permissions for SQL Agent SP's
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_help_category TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_category TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_job TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobserver TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobstep TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_add_jobschedule TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_help_job TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_delete_job TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_help_jobschedule TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT EXECUTE ON msdb.dbo.sp_verify_job_identifiers TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT SELECT ON msdb.dbo.sysjobs TO RSExecRole
GO
GRANT SELECT ON msdb.dbo.syscategories TO RSExecRole
GO


Custom RDP Solution Part 3 (RDX)

Here is an update on my custom rdp solution.

Initial testing only uncovered minor issues. After those were resolved we deployed it to a few of our users that connect to all of our terminal servers. I am using it when I VPN into my work machine. Several high traffic machines were secretly changed over. Not only was the change over smooth, the users had no issues with it.

We are ready for production. As we rebuild or deploy new machines, my new client goes out with them. Once I have about 10% deployment penetration, I plan on pushing it out domain wide with group policy.

Tweaking Vista

I recently made the jump to Vista. I feel like I now have it tweaked and performing reasonably well.  I can sit here and type to the sound of my keyboard keys and not to the grinding of my hard drive.  Vista spent a lot of recourses just being vista and not doing anything useful. 

 

I like to pull up task manager and see that CPU usage dance between 0% and 2% as I type this.  I have a little blog authoring tool open and IE displaying my last search behind me.  I also trimmed the memory usage down, but I cant get it anyplace close to XP or server 2003. 

 

Most of my tweaking was done by disabling services to features that don't add any value.  I have disabled everything possible that does not impact my use of Vista.  I have some things enabled that I would remove if I did not VPN regularly.  Here is my list of running services that I felt are required for a stable functioning computer.

 

get Outlook 2007 work with Lotus Domino server using DAMO

At my place of work the email system is lotus notes. The lotus domino server was set up with fairly open access for the longest time. We could use any client we wanted if we knew how to configure it. A while ago they took steps to secure it and closed off POP3 and IMAPI access.

That left us with having to use only Lotus Notes. For Outlook 2003 I was able to use Outlook 2003/2002 Add-in: Notes Connector from Microsoft. When Outlook 2007 was released, Microsoft never updated that addon. IBM also did the exact same thing. The IBM addon is called Domino Access for Microsoft Outlook . After some digging, I was able to get the IBM DAMO connector to work with Outlook 2007.

The first question is where do I find or download the DAMO? The simple answer is that you get it from your server administrator. You cannot download it as an individual component. You have to install a copy of the Lotus Domino server to get the DAMO installer. I have no clue why IBM does not provide it as a standalone download. I also do not see it hosted anyplace else. I am reluctant to host it myself because of that.

So to get your hands on it yourself you will have to download a trial copy of Lotus Domino 8 (or whatever the current trial is) from the Lotus downloads page. This does require registration, but its fairly painless. When you do the install, you can deselect everything except DAMO. I somehow lost the DAMO installer when I tried it, but was able to do a computer search to find it.

Once you do the install, you must add the install location (%ProgramFiles%\DominoForOutlook) to your Path variable in environmental variables. Make sure that all other lotus locations in that path variable are after the one you just added. I did see a registry key to check. Mine was set to the correct value by default.
computer\hkey_current_user\software\microsoft\office\outlook\addins\inotesoutlookaddin.addin
Change LoadBehavior to 3.

The next issue you will run into is missing emails or messages that don't replicate into outlook. By default, you will only see the last 90 days of messages and will be limited to 200M of email. In the Outlook tools -> options -> Domino Preferences you will find a replication section. Bump it up to 365 days and 1600M. Then close out of Outlook and reopen it. Once it finishes replication, go back in and lower the number of days in those options. If you leave the number at 1 year replication will be slower day to day.

So far it has worked very well. I am still looking into an issue where a message with a corrupt message body does not show up in Outlook but does in Lotus.

MySims load times are killing me

I recently got a Wii and now have MySims.  I kind of like how I can use the blueprints and just crank out things, but have the option of freedom. 

I like being able to make some very creative items.

At the same time, the amount of time spent loading everything is killing the game for me.  I can understand some loading.  Every time I enter a building or leave a building it has to load something.  I expect that loading.

The place where it gets under my skin is the loading in the menu screens.  Every time you check your back pack, or tasks, or friends, or blue prints it has to load them.  These are simple heads up display items that you would expect to be very responsive. 

Not only does everything have to load every time the display changes, extra steps are added that cause more loading time.

Here is an example.  If I want to build something, I have to go to my shop.  Before the shop loads, I am asked what I want to work on.  I make a choice and then have to wait for my shop to load.  Lets say I am done with that item and want to work on a second.  I have to leave the shop, wait for the world to load, enter the same shop I was just in, make my choice, and wait for the shop to load again.

Several of the menu items force you back to the main menu requiring you to load the submenu again if you want to look at a different option.

This is a good game.  But when I am working fast, I spend 1/3 of my game time looking at the loading screen.  I wish that was an exaggeration.

I get the feeling the framework is too bloated and overused.  It sounds like other recent Sims games suffer in the same way.  I would hope they clean up there code base before reusing it in another project.

Why does windows live take so long to install?

I saw Microsoft released a blog writing tool as a windows live app. I decided to try it at work and at home. The installer has one step where it checks for existing windows live apps.  It bothers me that Microsoft has a dozen or so apps, yet it spends a lot of time looking for them.

It takes longer for the installer to look for those 12 apps than to do the rest of the install.

I can only guess what they are looking for, but I suspect that step is just mislabeled.  Sometimes its the small details that give you uneasy feelings.