Seeing is NOT believing

Gabriel: He was not like today's magicians who are just interested in the Television rating.
He was a real talent. He used to make a huge big elephant disappear in front of all the audiences, in front of hundreds of people.

Stan: What the fuck you are talking about....

Gabriel: You know he used to do it. Misdirection!!! Misdirection Stan..

Stan: What the hell!!!

Gabriel: The mind believes what the eyes see and the ears hear. And believe me Stan, it is one of the biggest mistakes that most of us do.

Stan: What?

Gabriel: Seeing and Hearing is NOT believing Stan!!!!

Purpose Filled Life

Sometimes it so happens that some very interesting inter-related events happens to you in a quick succession. A few days back I was reading my all time favorite book "Alchemist" once again after about 4 years. Then just 2 days later then I accidentally came across a very b-e-autiful video by Rick Warren on a life filled with purpose. And then accidentally out of no-where I met a person who reminded me of someone who inspires me, even long after getting back to the dust.

The one thing which I really liked about the Rick Warren video is when he says that "life is not all about wake in the morning- go to the office- come back - sleep - wake up in the morning-and so on". He went on to say that we are all unique, and are here for some special purpose.



One thing without which I simply cannot imagine living life is when you don't have any proper direction or aim to follow. It's like you are going along a road, then just bcz someone asks to come along you boards a random bus, the bus going in some random place, you spends your time singing and dancing in the bus; without even knowing where the bus is going :)

I personally believes that almost all of us had some dreams when we were small kids. But I guess as the time went on, mundane things like gossips, doubts, work, other's expectations from you, etc, etc. takes the place of your dreams. As the "Alchemist" says, most of the people here are fighting only for food, water and shelter. We become so busy in food, water and shelter that sometimes we simply forgets that we have a dream to follow.

Imagine, what this world would look like if each one us identifies our dreams and then standby with them, no matter what happens. Ironically, most of the terrorists are doing the same. They are standing by their aims even if it means the end of their life. I am willing to bet that if if each one us identifies our dreams and then standby with them, then the world would become a heaven (for the living beings dude ;)

Alexander III of Macedon once said, "The world belongs to those who believes in the glory and the beauty of the dreams". So what do you want? Boarding a bus without even knowing where it is going :) or do you want the glory and the immortality which comes along when you follow your dreams!!!. As always, the choice will be totally yours :)

Jesus Healing a Blind Person

Just came across this old video that I just cannot resist posting. For the time being just enjoy this video. Will write more about these legends (Jesus, Prophet Mohammed) very soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-QDXiiSSMs

Executing a SSIS package on a remote server

Recently, I was faced with the problem of executing a SSIS package on remote server.
No doubt it is a simple problem but for one reason or another I faced a heck of a issues in this, so after finally able to execute the package I decided to blog my solution.

Coming back to the problem, the MSDN page for the same (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms403355.aspx), shows two ways to do the same.
First is via the SQL Server agent, and the second is via the Web Service. If your application is not only interested in just executing the package but in also knowing about the execution status of that package (which I guess almost all applications would do), then package execution using the SQL server agent won't be that handy.

The next way stated in the MSDN is to execute a package on remote server is via the web service.
Well, I tried giving appropriate permissions to my web service by making the impersonation property true in the web.config file, but still the I was not able to successfully execute the package. Tried searching everywhere for a solution to this problem in vain. Finally, I figured out that the web service was not able to successfully execute the package because SSIS creates multiple threads that run under the process’s user account and as such impersonation gets ignored.

Another option one can use to execute a package on a remote computer is using the PSExec tools (on Windows Versions without UAC) but this solution is also not very handy when your application is also interested in getting the various warning messages generated during the execution of the package.

Finally I tried to execute the package via the WCF services and was very easily able to execute the package. Executing the package via the WCF service is by far one of the simplest ways to do the same. You can very easily make a standalone host and can use it to execute the package on the remote machine. Writing the standalone host and it's client application is a damn easy task and there are lot's of tutorials for the same on the net.

So if you are considering executing a package on a remote machine, I would say go with the WCF service way. It's a damn easy way and also gives you the flexibility to extend your application in whatever way you want. In addition, this does not requires one to code a lot of lines and thus do mistakes :).

Enjoy the Life!!!

Good One

A jock and a geek applying for the same job.
The boss said, "Boys, you need to take a test before you can get this job."
So they took the test and the next day they came back to see who the boss chose. "Well," he said, "Both of you got the same score except I'm going to choose the geek."
The jock complained, "Don't you think that's prejudice or something?"
"Well," the boss said, "Let me tell you what happened. Both of your papers were right all the way through until the last question came up, and the geek answered 'I don't know,' and then when I looked at your paper, you answered, 'Me either'.