If you use Remote Desktop (aka Terminal Services) to connect to Windows servers, you probably know that by default ony two people can be connected via RDC at a time. So it sucks when you need to get onto a machine but you get the dreaded messages:

The terminal server has exceeded the maximum number of connections

or

The system can not log you on. The system has reached its licensed logon limit.

Especially when it's late at night and no one else is in the office. :) So, there are two solutions to get you past the blockade:

1. Log onto a different server (one with free RDC connections) on the same network and domain as the blocked server. Open up Terminal Services Manager, navigate to the blocked server, open up the list of connected users, right-click a victim (preferably a long-idle one) and Log Out and Disconnect them. Wait up to 30 seconds, and they should drop off. Now you can connect to that server and fix that bug you accidentally migrated. :)
2. If the above solution doesn't work, you can actually RDC to the console session (i.e. as if you were sitting at the PC's keyboard), which can act as a third RDC connection independent of the two main RDC connections. To do this:
   • Open on a command prompt (Start->Run->"cmd").
     
   • Enter "mstsc /v:<servername> /console" and hit Enter. <servername> should be replaced by the machine name of the server you're connecting to.
   • You should see a familiar RDC console window come up & be able to log in. Note that if someone else is logged in at the console, either
     • If you're an Administrator, you'll have the opportunity to kick them off.
     • If you're not an Administrator, you're out of luck on the console session. But at least you tried.

Hopefully the above will help provide a workaround for the 2-connection RDC limit on busy boxes.

SADeveloper has an interesting article on programmer productivity, basically along the lines that a good programmer can be 5-20 times as productive as a poor one. My first boss drilled into me that "software development was one of the few professions where a one person can be ten times as productive as another." And I believe it -- poor programmers can screw up code, get stuck constantly, miss requirements and have to re-work things, deliver bug-ridden code, etc. Other "creative" professions (science, music, etc.) are similar in that the productivity gap can be surprising.

Ray from CodeBetter had some interesting counterpoints to the article, but I've seen firsthand how much poor developers can stink. If you remove all thinking from the task, then the only measurement you'd need was typing speed & mouse-hand speed. But that's not what defines the productivity of a developer -- it's what their brain does that makes the difference.

Now, the funny part is I think with proper training, a good architect, smart division of labor, & in-place processes, you can narrow the productivity gap. Someone who sucks should be moved or fired. And in a gunslinger code culture, your rock stars will always smoke the average Joes. But what if you instead have

• training so that everyone knows the project process
• an actual project process that minimizes problems of scope creep, requirements confusion, and implementation/architecture snafus. RUP comes to mind, but there are others (MSF, XP, etc.).
  
• dedicated people for the tasks that "poor/average" programmers often mess up on (architecture, project planning, requirements, etc.)
• a software architect who can divide tasks among developers according to their skill level
  
• a culture that encourages learning and asking questions
• a good screening system to get rid of or avoid hiring people who don't work well in teams
• a mentoring system to pass along tips and information

With the above, I think you can reduce the productivity gap. You eliminate or reduce many of the issues that cause weaker developers to fall so far behind their counterparts. You'll still have faster and slower programmers, people who can devise algorithms or who know their APIs and patterns backwards and forwards instead of having to Google them all the time. But time and again, some of the biggest sandtraps I've seen programmers fall into are ones related to architecture, project management, and failure to follow a methodology and process that guides people towards better applications.

Bah, got some blog comment spam the other day. Or at least I think it was spam. Even though dasBlog has a CAPTCHA control on the comment field (to prevent most comment-spam-bots), people can still manually add comments that have no relevance & link to their sites filled with affiliate links. Bujarf.

Found a great writeup on abstract classes versus interfaces at the code project. While not every developer or project makes use of those OOP constructs, it's important to be familiar with OOP terms for a few reasons:

• So you can design better systems
• So you can expand your knowledge
• So you can better understand other developers' code
• So you don't look like a n00b at some developer gathering

I feel that developers using Microsoft platforms are sometimes at a disadvantage when it comes to practical experience with OOP concepts. Not all developers, but if people started out coding in ASP or VB, they may not have the years of OO development that someone starting with java/etc would. I place the blame solely on the earlier MS platform and the "build it quick & dirty" ability that RAD toolkits accommodated. I'm not bashing anyone...there are many great coders on all platforms. But do you know how kludgey it was doing OO with VB6, ASP 3? Yup...pretty goofy.

Anyhow, I like simple straightforward writeups that I can print out & read on the train, etc. Hence the above link. Plus a link to CodeBetter's Feb 2005 articles -- there are some articles in there on OO concepts (abstraction, encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism) that will help any budding OO buddy.

My Yahoo referrals went WAY down last week, and I realized that dasBlog doesn't direct-link to URLs in posts. Which normally is good. However, it means that when I linked to all my old blog content, spiders weren't able to see it. So Yahoo thinks all my blog posts went away, and so I have less content, and so I'm not worth sending traffic to as much. Which is a downer.

So for now the archive links are in the blogroll, which is a direct link. Eventually I'll rework the site design.

Slashdot has an interesting blurb on running Windows 2000 on old, crappy machines. The original information is very helpful for getting rid of any performance-draining services & effects. BlackViper is also a resource for stripping OS settings down to the bare minimum for optional performance.

One big reason for running Windows 2000 on old hardware is so you can make use of otherwise "junk" boxes. Use them as file servers, web servers, test machines, internet terminals, etc.

Scott Mitchell has a good post on database projects in Visual Studio. Helpful for those people still using Query Analyzer or SQL Server Enterprise Manager for all their database development.

Some of the benefits include better source control, using one tool for web dev & db dev, and a better editor. I don't know if I agree that deployment is significantly easier than in SQL Enterprise Manager -- DTS makes it pretty easy, too. Plus did you know that if you highlight a table/proc name in SQL Enterprise Manager and hit CTRL-C, the clipboard is filled with the T-SQL needed to create that entity? Go ahead, try it. Its cool, sortof.

One ohter benefit that Scott forgot to mention (at least in his blog summary) was stored procedure debugging. Without stored procedure debugging, you're stuck with extra PRINT & SELECT statements spread throughout your T-SQL. Being able to launch a proc & debug it using Visual Studio allows for much better development and troubleshooting.

So I've made the switch from Blogger to dasBlog for at least a few main reasons:

• dasBlog supports RSS feeds
• dasBlog has better monitoring and reporting features
• dasBlog will ping more RSS aggregators
• dasBlog supports CAPTCHA-protected comments (less comment spam)
• dasBlog has auto trackback
• dasBlog runs on my machine, so I can monkey with it if I want to
• dasBlog has categories, so I can group my posts for users' benefit. Useful for people who blog about a lot of different things.

However, I've noticed that dasBlog isn't as good as Blogger for search engines. For example:

• dasBlog's links aren't as spider friendly. They have some SEO-friendly (i..e no querystrings) URLs, but they delimit the words with spaces instead of dashes. And not all links are SEO-friendly.
• dasBlog does't have as many links to archived content. It seems like the only content a spider could get to is content from the current month. Older posts are seemingly only accessible via a javascript method call.
• dasBlog has a bunch of crap in the HTML. ASP.NET view state, inline CSS, inline javascript -- just a lot of stuff that is i nthe HTML (especially at the top) that has nothing to do with the content. I know that spiders will ignore a lot of that stuff, but it's still not cool.

I'll be fooling with the HTML in the next few weeks ... get the site all looking the same, improve the SEO aspect. Stay tuned for whether it's a success or dismal failure. ;)

Submitted my blog to a few different places, including popdex, technorati, bloguniverse, and yahoo. The trick with Yahoo is to create a MyYahoo page and add your own RSS feed to it. Then it'll get crawled.

Check out http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/ for a list of many (many) places to submit your RSS feeds. I made it to number 95 before I got tired. ;) Also, http://www.blog-connection.com/submit-blogs.htm is another smaller blog submission list.

So far I'm pretty happy with dasBlog, although it could use a few improvements. And obviously I need to update the design. But anyhow.