The future of storage
Leave it to the folks at Corsair to set the stage for solid state USB storage. I have had my eye on a SS drive for the last few months as I am in the market for a new notebook. I have not pulled the trigger in hopes that these would drop in price for those of us who have to balance our own checkbooks.

I recall the days of the Amiga 2000 and its ability to utilize RAM as available hard drive space (did I just date myself? I meant to use an Xbox analogy!) and how efficient that was. Commodore was always ahead of their time... So here we are some years later and just as I had expected long ago we are breaking into solid state as an attainable means of data storage. These drives are somewhat smaller than their mechanical counterparts but I can adjust. The speed of access (250MBPS read and 170MBPS write) and reliability are well worth the size sacrifice.

There are several size flavors on the market with 60GB and 120GB versions. I am banking on the fact that my new notebook will have a 250GB drive in it for which I am willing to wait. The Nova series uses the Indilinx Barefoot controller which carries 64MB of cache capability.

My understanding is that Windows 7 was written to optimize solid state drives. The world is ripe for this technology. If Microsoft is providing support in their new OS then we are just a block away from seeing these in every desktop.

I can't wait...

A little R&R
This really has nothing to do with Time Matters, running your business or the latest high tech gadget. It's just plain cool. Imagine the scene the next time that you go to a movie theatre and are suddenly swept up into the plot. Now I'm not talking about just being engrossed here. No, this is a whole new animal all together.

Attendees have the option of adding their cell phone numbers into a database that is accessed during the film. The protagonist will call on one lucky audience member  who will drive the outcome of the film through verbal directions. The software necessary for this (as well as the concept) was written by 13th Street Last Call.

The idea is to engage the entire audience in the outcome of the movie. This puts me in mind of the Which Way books that I used to read in elementary school. The "controller" is providing a new outcome each time you see the show. This can develop an entirely new experience each time the film runs.

Perhaps we would watch a scene where the CIC is in a law office late at night and has to work with tech support on a gnarly issue. Just as you are becoming involved in the show your cell phone rings and you must save the day. "What keyboard shortcut do I use? Ctrl+Shift+P or Ctrl+Shift+A? Hurry, the partner will be back any minute!" OK, I was able to tie this in with Time Matters after all.

I can see a need to bank up my rollover minutes in hopes that I don't have to explain to my business partner why we went over our allotted monthly stipend. This is just one more step in a completely submersed user experience. Add this to the Smell-O-Vision of yesteryear and we are really talking!

Changing the default SQL backup location

It is not uncommon to walk into a firm and be asked to relocate the current location of the TM output file that is created during the backup process. This is a relatively simple process and it's effective use can make you look like a rock star...

This article assumes that you are using TMN 9.0 Enterprise and SQL 2005 with SQL Management Studio Express. This is meant to be used for informational purposes only.

Use the following steps to perform this operation:

1. You may be required to log into the SQL server if the credentials have not been previously saved:

2. Once you are logged into the SQL server with SA (system admin) credentials, look to the left side of the screen and click on the + next to databases to expand the list:

3. Click on the + sign next to your TimeMatters database name and then click on the + next to Programmability:

4. Expand Stored procedures and find tm9user.TM_Backup in the list:

5. Right click on the tm9user.TM_Backup and choose Modify form the menu. The SQL script will appear on the right side of the screen:

6. In order to have TM backup the database to another location you will have to modify the last section of the script. Assuming that your original configuration is: SET @vcBackupDevice = @vcDbName+@vcBaseName+@vcDOW+'.bak' BACKUP DATABASE @vcDbName TO DISK = @vcBackupDevice WITH INIT If your new backup location is G:\Server\Backups here is what the script would look like after the change. Our edits are in bold black text: SET @vcBackupDevice =‘G:\Server\Backups\’+ @vcDbName+@vcBaseName+@vcDOW+'.bak' BACKUP DATABASE @vcDbName TO DISK = @vcBackupDevice WITH INIT

The script MUST be exactly the same as what is listed above or it will fail most likely through an error within Time Matters.