Joel Francisco

XSPF Web Music Player

It's a nice flash mp3 player developed by Fabricio Zuardi , thanks to him we can use his opensource code and use it on our sites. You can find the sample of this on the right frame of my site, with some of the songs i've been listening to this week very intently and singing silently and with some hand movements (specially Viva La Vida by Coldplay) whenever and wherever it's playing.

It uses xspf or a "spiff file", an xml shareable playlist format. You can learn more here:

http://www.xspf.org

You can learn more on this web MP3 player from his site at sourceforge:

http://musicplayer.sourceforge.net 

Yahoo Messenger! Power User

I have been invited by Yahoo to be a power user! YaY! Yahoo is rewarding account users who has been using Yahoo! and Yahoo Messenger! for quite a while and who has been using it frequently and has huge amount of contacts on their accounts, which fortunately i am. Anyway, being a power user has privileges. Remember the old IRChatting days were you get a + or an @ sign (OP) meaning your an operator or a valued member, well it's basically like that you get a trophy or a crown or something beside your name on the contacts list so your friends will see. You get some new avatar stuff exclusively for power users. And best of all is that you get Tech support from Yahoo for free.

If you want to be one plus you want to know the other benefits of being a power user, please check this link: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/messenger/messenger9/pwrusr/pwrusr-01.html

Also they give you this nifty script on my right side plugins wherein you have an online status display whether i am online or not on Yahoo Messenger.  Coolness.

Cheers!

Safari browser on Windows

Google Calendar, nice!

Google Calendar is probably the best web calendar around…well i dont know of any other than google. Well its really a nice way to be organized specially when your trying to be an organized person…hehehe.. It CAN sync with your MS Outlook 2003/2007 (currently) and iCAL if you are a MAC User. Coolest feature is that it sends you SMS when you tick it on the option of an event wherever you are, FOR FREE!! Isn't that the coolest thing? Google, im sure has its own SMS Gateway (well nothing really to be surprised of ) and sends reminders to your mobile phone if you set it up!

Google Calendar also has "share calendar" facility so you can share your own calendar to your friends and family so that they have an idea of what you are working currently. Well of course you dont put "going to the bathroom" kind of stuff in your events.

It works if you have a google/gmail account. So if you dont have one, go get one and dont be left behind with google technology.

SQL 2005 Cluster

Yesterday morning, I went to Emirates Transport HQ in Deira near the Airport and configured their SQL 2005 Cluster. It was a piece of cake (considering that they could have done this themselves), thanks to Brad McGehee for his nice article and his tutorials. Other articles and useful SQL Server information can be found in www.sql-server-performance.com. Also thanks to Google for giving me the correct path to righteousness!

Here is the direct link of the article for the steps on
How to Cluster SQL Server 2005: http://www.sql-server-performance.com/articles/clustering/cluster_sql_server_2005_p1.aspx 

Be sure you know how to correctly establish a Windows Cluster! Here is the direct link of the article for the steps on
How to Cluster Windows Server 2003:
http://www.sql-server-performance.com/articles/clustering/cluster_server_2003_p1.aspx

Note: When using cables to connect private network cards of the clusters (it happens when the network guys are lazy to connect it to the switch or it just doesn't have available ports), be sure to use straight network cables. I don't know the theory about it but ahmm…the cluster failover didnt work when we used a cross cable. Hope this helps.

Joelfrancisco.net reinvented

Hello world and once again, i am back typing in front of the screen on my blogsite. Last time i checked, my site running in Joomla is untouched and no data nor anything had changed on that site. In the design, i really did'nt had the time to change it and for now the site will only be blogs i will publish……..and I'm still contemplating if i want people to comment on the stuff that i would write. Quite frankly i don't give a damn whoa too rude….No really, i may not enable it, hmmm…… in any case i can choose to publish it or not. Ohh cmon, whether i like it or not, i dont want to think about it now (and most probably its automatically enabled), because i'm very happy that i finished the header image i have put on this site. BTW thanks to Haydee for that semi-Forrest Gump shot on her lovely Nikon D-80. Well i just hope this site will work for me now for a longer period of time. Last time i used Serendipity (really cool opensource php blog app) was 2 years ago and it is still fun to use til then. I hope visitors will find it AT LEAST nice, and might say "Yeah, your site is fine" And did'nt really mean it….but i guess it ok if i dont know it

But this i would really mean to say to visitors of my site: "Enjoy!"