May

10

No Smoking Room @ Krislounge in Changi T3

2008 | By dondy | Permalink | 3 Comments

So here I am, in Krislounge Terminal 3 Changi Airport waiting for my plane to LAX. It is my first experience in the brand new Terminal 3 although I did stop over to this terminal few month ago on the way back to Indonesia. However, at that time my flight back to Jakarta was on Terminal 2, so I needed to rush to take the train to go there from Terminal 3 which where the flight from LAX landed.  

This time my flight from Jakarta to Singapore landed in Terminal 3 and my flight to LAX is also in Terminal 3, so yohoo..

I took a long walk from the arriving gate to the Krislounge but it was worth it. Bought a Marlboro Medium (which I always buy whenever I stop over in Changi) and almost bought a Web Camera for 79 Sing Dollar. 

The Krislounge in Terminal 3 is pretty much impressive compares to the Krislounge in Terminal 2, BUT .... There's no smoking room in here :( Well, I still can smoke at the balcony outside which fortunately near but having go back and forth with 4 kg of bag consisting laptop and my other gadget stuff in my back is really not pleasant :( )

The internet lounge in this Krislounge consists of two different row with different computer. One row full of 21" iMac with Leopard and the other row is using one piece monitor+CPU with Windows Vista.

And if you guys are wondering, I'm using 21" iMac to write this post, and I love Lucid. :D

Mar

31

Delete Work Item in TFS

2008 | By dondy | Permalink | 6 Comments

In TFS 2008, there's a capability to delete unused work item. I know some people think that physically delete the work item is not needed because there are several work around to achieve it, nevertheless for the reason of tidiness everything, delete work item physically sometimes is required.

Out of the box, this feature is not available. You need to install TFS 2008 Power Tools and use the TFPT.EXE command line tools (although I believe GUI will be more than useful).

Be careful now, there's no way to recover or undelete the work item by executing this tool.

As the description suggest, using this tool is not deleting records in datawarehouse (TFS uses SQL Server both OLTP and OLAP), only in operational database. The implication is the deleted work item will still appear in Team Reporting.

To fix this, manual deletion is required in TFS Datawarehouse database, some people will say that this practice is dangerous because potentially will break the data integrity but I think if we do it properly, the risk can be eliminated.

in SQL Management Studio, connect to TFS Database Server, and then unfold TFSWarehouse database.

Notice five tables with name related to work item. [Current Work Item], [Work Item], [Work Item Changeset], [Work Item History], and [Work Item with Result].

Query [Work Item] table to get the work item id in Datawarehouse with this SQL statement

SELECT __ID, System_Title FROM [Work Item] WHERE System_Id = workitemid

workitemid in here is the work items id that is used in TFPT command. Don't get confused because in other 4 tables that previously noted the work item id that will be used is coming from [Work Item].__ID.

For the other 4 tables here's the SQL statement that need to be executed

Delete [table name] where [work item] = workitem_from_[Work Item].__ID

Then rebuilt you cube by executing the OLAP Database and Warehouse Run from web services.

Disclaimer : please be very careful when conducting this procedure. I am not responsible if your TFS data is messed up

Jan

02

New Year's Eve in Tempe Arizona

2008 | By dondy | Permalink | 1 Comment

My plan before was going to New York City for the new year's eve. But due to irrational US Air ticket price from Phoenix to New York, I decided to stay in Tempe. One of my colleague here told me that attraction in Tempe for new year's eve actually is not really bad. In fact it's considered one of the best along with the one in Time Square New York.

The new year's eve celebration in Tempe is called Insight Bowl Block Party. Yep, there's a bowl (post season American football game) before the party. This year the participants in Insight Bowl is Oklahoma State and Indiana State. Did I come to the game ? Of course not. First, although I like American football and want to come but both of the teams is not my favorite. Second, my local colleague and I have plan to visit some mine sites outside the city.

The last day of the year, the working time in my company Tempe's office was until mid day. So one of my colleague here asked me if I want to come with him to visit some mine sites and taking picture. Definitely, I said yes. So we went to the town named Miami. Not Miami, FL but Miami, AZ. Along the way we also visited town called Superior.

This town was the set of a movie "U Turn". I've seen this movie before but didn't remember at all about this place. Maybe because in the movie the town was told in the middle of nowhere. It is in the middle of nowhere.

At night, I visited this Insight Bowl Block Party. I got lucky because when I was there, I was kind a starving and it seems all the restaurant in Mills Avenue is packed with people. So I went to the restaurant that I often visit and managed to get myself a table and even so, they also gave me my usual menu which they didn't serve that night (That's what I call SERVICE).

After dinner and everything, I walked on the Mills Ave where the celebration happen. A LOT OF PEOPLE. My impression was that US people are not much different than Indonesian in term of celebrating new year.

Enjoy the pictures below :) and complete pictures can be seen here

Jan

01

New Year Resolution

2008 | By dondy | Permalink | 0 Comments

Another year goes by and here come the new year. There was a lot of thing happen to me and my family in 2007. I joined the company that I work for now. My wife and I decided to buy a new car (family car, replacing the our old city car). Emma, our first daughter, went to school for the first time (well pre-school). My MVP award was renewed for 3 years in a row now. We moved to new apartment, same size not bigger but we get good view and also balcony. I got a new boss at the office. I represented my company to receive an award from Microsoft Indonesia for The Most Innovative Company in IT Technology. One of the reason for this award is the implementation of Visual Studio Team System in the company's application development group, which happen to be led by me :). Last but not least that happen to me this year was going to USA for some business trip.

For me going to US is really not a big thing. But since not everybody in the company get this opportunity, I take this assignment as an honor. Especially I come here to consolidate the implementation of VSTS corporate wide and also the future of our Enterprise Framework.

Anyway, there are several things that I want to do in my personal and family life and also in my professional life. Not much of a list but here it is, things that I want to do in this new year.

• Be a better daddy for Emma and Daisy. Sometimes I feel that I haven't given enough time for them. I seldom take them to go somewhere. This need to change starting this year.
• Redecorate our new apartment. Right now is kind a messy because of the moving and stuff, but after seeing my colleague's home here in Arizona, I got some idea on how to make the apartment  comfortable as a place that we call home.
• Be a better leader in the office. I'm always learning how to be the best one and there is always something here and there that I can really improve on. Especially taking on responsibility of something that may not be my task.
• Improve the Enterprise Framework and VSTS operation. My biggest dream in the company that I work for now is to have Enterprise Framework that can really make everybody life easier, not only Developer and Architect but also Business Analyst and Project Manager. And VSTS should be the tool to make it happen.
• Finish the dream project that my good friend and I always dream about. This is kind a hard, because we have talked about this in the last two year and never come up with something. We had this big dream and idea (and sometime new too), but always hard to find time to make it happen. Hopefully in 2008 we will get something.

I write this while I'm in Tempe, Arizona now. Hopefully when I get back to Indonesia, I can start accomplishing everything that I've written above. Amen

Dec

31

US (Business) Trip

2007 | By dondy | Permalink | 2 Comments

Here I am, in Tempe and Phoenix Arizona, Unites States of America for company related business trip. I've been here for two weeks now and life has been good so far. The plan is I'll be here until Jan 19, 2008 but there are some talks going on to extend me here for another week, due to another party will be here as well on the second week of January for two and half weeks. Since this party is also from Application Development (same company, different location), my colleagues here think it's good to meet and discuss as well as debate while we're on the same city and room.

My purpose for this business trip is to discuss the corporate wide implementation of Visual Studio Team System, Enterprise Architecture Framework and Operation Portal of my company. I'll share about each of this on different post later.

Although I'm here for business, I also get some fun. With my colleague here, I've visited some places such as Four Peaks and Tombstone (yeah, if you're wild west fans then you know what I mean). I've also come to my holding company Christmas party which is held in the Phoenix Suns home - US Airways Center and managed to take a picture with the owner of the company (how cool is that ! I definitely will print this picture and put it in my office to make my colleagues back home jealous hehehe *grin*). My colleague here also invited me to his family traditional Christmas celebration. I got present as well although I don't celebrate Christmas.

Meanwhile, please enjoy pictures of me taken in Four Peaks and Tombstone. All my US trip pictures can be seen in my flickr.

Dec

31

Just Upgrade this BlogEngine to version 1.3

2007 | By dondy | Permalink | 5 Comments

My blog now is powered with the latest version of BlogEngine. I used version 1.1 before, didn't bother to upgrade to 1.2. Well, actually I wanted to but due to various reason I decided not. But since now I'm in the United States (that's another story that I want to share later) and most of the time I have nothing to do except working on weekdays and crawling the malls or sight seeing to some tourist site on weekend, I think this is the perfect time for me to upgrade. It was also because BlogEngine just released new version on Dec 22, 2007.

Upgrading from version 1.1directly to version 1.3 was very easy. Well, there were steps that needed to take, since I'm using the SQLBlogProvider instead of XML one and also the fact that I've added custom control in it, but it was flawless. For you who also have the same situation like me, maybe this steps can help you out (Thanks, to Al Nyveldt who provided SQL Script and instruction for upgrade)

1. Upgrade the SQL Script from 1.1 to 1.2 first. This is necessary since 1.2 has added some new fields. Instruction and script can be found here
2. Upgrade the SQL Script from 1.2 to 1.3. Again 1.3 has added fields. Instruction and script can be found here
3. Replace all the 1.1 files with 1.3 files except the APP_DATA folder, because your post pics and users database are there.
4. Change the web.config, 1.3 doesn't have SQLConfig anymore. SQL server credential has been move to web.config
5. (optional, specific to this blog) Update some syntax in my template and also update some code in BlogService and BlogProvider, for recent comment with gravatar.

And, that's it. Everything only took me less than 1 hour. Now what I need to do is putting some post in it. A friend of mine commented that I done more on the engine than putting some posts.

Well he's right. I'm (or was) a developer, so ?

Dec

12

Hello World (again) ...

2007 | By Dondy | Permalink | 2 Comments

Well, this blog is not dead yet. Just don't have time to update it for quite some time. Stay tune if you're reading it through RSS because this blog will have something exciting in the upcoming weeks :)