If you've ever had anything to do with maintaining or migrating a fileserver you will probably have experienced issues with MAX_PATH. In Windows the maximum length for a path is MAX_PATH, which is defined as 260 characters. One of the most common errors for MAX_PATH is "Can't access this folder. Path is too long." This usually happens when users (those pesky users!) map a drive half way down a directory structure and started creating new files and folders.

You can find more information about MAX_PATH at the following locations:

• Path too long error message when exceeding MAX_PATH
• Naming a File or Directory
• Long Paths in .NET, Part 1 of 3
• Long Paths in .NET, Part 2 of 3: Long Path Workarounds
• Long Paths in .NET, Part 3 of 3 Redux

I've seen a number of different ways of finding paths that are too long but my favourite at the moment is using the Microsoft Log Parser. Details:

• http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/tools/logparser/default.mspx
• http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=890cd06b-abf8-4c25-91b2-f8d975cf8c07&displaylang=en

Once you've downloaded LogParser you can run the following command to output a CSV file of paths greater than 250 characters:

LogParser "SELECT Path, Size FROM C:\*.* WHERE STRLEN(Path) > 250" -i:FS -preserveLastAccTime:ON -o:CSV > Results.csv

Just change the "C:\*.*" to the location you want to check for long paths and Bob's your uncle.

I just notice there is a new version of my favourite comparison tool Beyond Compare. In my mind Beyond Compare is one of the best file and folder comparison tools available. Go to Scooter Software to get Beyond Compare 3!

I laughed myself silly yesterday when I received an email from Microsoft Support with the following:

"I am sorry for the late reply. Unfortunately our Microsoft network is down since last week. All the domain controllers had to rebuild again. The email system is down, internet is down. So we are unable to communicate with our existing customers.

I will contact you as soon our infrastructure is ready.

Sorry for inconvenient."

Best excuse for poor service from Microsoft yet!

I just noticed a couple of guys I've work with lately have started blogging. These guys really know their stuff so you should go take a look:

• Chris - http://www.cmb-it.blogspot.com/
• Wayne - http://waynes-world-it.blogspot.com/

So you may have noticed a few asthetic changes to my blog but as well as this I've upgraded it to dasBlog 2.0. I must say the upgrade was fairly painless.

I've been making small but noticable changes to the layout of the site. This will continue until I'm happy with what will be come a new theme I'll send it to be included with dasBlog.

Kelly keeton was nice enough to fix a bug in my css that cause the Project84Grass theme to look a little weird in IE7. Thanks mate!! I'll post the update theme as a zip file later today.

Happy New Year!! While 2005 seemed like a year that went by in a flash it took a rather long time for 12:00 to come by. The night was spent with friends and family and I must say it was quite enjoyable. All the best to you all and have a happy and pleasant new year.

Well it is another hot summers day here at my parents place in Bundaberg. We spent the morning down at the beach in the water which has become a sort of Christmas tradition for our family. Now to spend the rest of the day eating as much as possible without being sick.

Merry Christmas to everyone!! Have a great day!

I purchased an HP IPAQ from GraysOnline.com.au a few weeks ago. It arrived on friday and after unpacking it I noticed that the screen was behaving really strange. The 'display' of the picture was fine but it was really inconsistent with the stylus. After trying for several hours to find out what the problem was I decided to make a warranty claim. Since this is a problem with the screen I doubt very much that they will replaced it for free but it is certainly worth a try. I'll keep you all updated on the progress.

I've been neglecting my blog:( Well as of today it will be an entry a day.:)

Finally after four years of toil I've finished my Bachelor of Information Technology. Now I can put BInfoTech after my name on business cards:) It is such a good feeling, almost the same as that feeling when you finish school. It's like you can now do all the things that you couldn't before because you were studying but don't want to do them. You couldn't wipe the smile off my face if you tried.

This is absolutely hilarious!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8890993777704907613&q=BSB

You may remember a little while ago I blogged about...well blogging....anyway it is over here: http://blog.project84.net/BlogsAreTheyTakingOver.aspx

Like many I'm sure, I've become addicted to places like Bloglines and memorandum. What really cheeses me is that people are just ripping off what's popular and putting it on there own blog. At the risk of being flamed I am going to pick on Scoble because....well he is easy to pick on ok.  I visit his blog because I know that he is the dude who started the whole channel9 thing and he works at Microsoft. So naturally I'm interested in what goes on in that sphere. If I wanted to know about Google or Sun or whoever, I'd go visit one of the regular news sites. I can read too you know and despite what my colleagues may think I have also mastered the copy/paste thing. Lets take a step back for a moment...why is it that we blog? Isn't it because we want to share our lives, our world, our view? Don't we blog because we think that others might be interested in what it is that we do or think? A lot of people are worse, they just link to whatever everyone else has on their blog....wtf? If your going to blog I think your should follow some lose guidelines:

• Blog about what it is that you or your company does. In the end that is going to be the best news because people aren't going to be able to get it anywhere else.
• Don't blog about something in the news or on another blog unless you have something substantial to add to it.
• Remember that readers are principally interested in your sphere not someone else's so make your content is as unique to you or your company as possible.
• There are news sites and blogs, they are two very different things.
• If you've started a blog for the sole purpose of promoting something then I think you've missed the whole blogging thing. Don't get me wrong, blogs will intrinsically generate activity around a product if that is what your blog is about, however that shouldn't be your focus. We don't want to know how much it costs or what discounts we get for reading about it in a blog, we want to know what it can do and how it does it. We want to know why it was done that way.
• I'm sure there are lots more but this will do for now.

I find that the most interesting blogs are those that give me something that I can't find somewhere else. I love reading Scott's blog because I always learn something that I didn't know before. Those of you out there that are just mindlessly posting to your blogs on topics that 100 other people posted minutes before, I'm sorry to say that we're not interested. Anyway...just me 2 cents.

On Friday I had my first 'Gold Class' cinema experience and I loved it. I went and seen Cinderella Man and it was also tops! I'd have to say the whole 'Gold Class' thing is totally worth it, I can't believe I haven't done it earlier.

For those of you not in Australia we have 'Gold Class' sessions at the cinemas. It like the movies for rich people almost. You get all this fine treatment, you order your food and drink before the movies starts and you also specify what time you'd like them to be served. When you get into the cinema there are these electronic lounge chairs so you can put your feet up and relax. It's awesome!!

If you like the theme for this site and you are using dashBlog then why not download it and use it on your own site. project84v2.zip (9.18 KB)

If you have any comments/suggestions or find any bugs please let me know.

Every now and then when I am going to add an entry to dashBlog I get an error. When I look in the event log I see the following:

Error:
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at FreeTextBoxControls.Support.ResourceManager.LoadResource(Hashtable target, String language, String cacheKey)
at FreeTextBoxControls.Support.ResourceManager.GetResources()
at FreeTextBoxControls.Support.ResourceManager.GetString(String name)
at FreeTextBoxControls.Support.Helper.PopulateDefaultDropDownList(ToolbarDropDownList toolbarDropDownList, FreeTextBox freeTextBox, ResourceManager resourceManager)
at FreeTextBoxControls.FreeTextBox.OnPreRender(EventArgs e)
at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()
at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()
at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()
at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()
at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()
at System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal()
at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain()
while processing http://blog.project84.net/EditEntry.aspx.

Has anyone else had this problem or know how to fix it??

Well I got sick of that ugly brown theme and created a new theme based off of one that was included with the new version of dashBlog. The theme was originally coded by James Snape which i then altered to come up with the theme you currently see here. What do you think?

I got sick of trying to get my blog working with Community Server so I've migrated over to DasBlog. The installation was painless and making skins is significantly easier than with CS. Now that I've got this working correctly, stay tunned for some exciting new posts.

I got thinking about blogging the other day….perhaps a little too hard. I was lucky enough to have grown up on a farm. Wide open spaces, fresh country air and those good old fashion friendly people you could waste hours with talking about the weather. It was a good life. I remember this old neighbour we had, he’d walk on in from the paddock bare-foot and rough as guts. He and my old man would talk for ages about just about anything. The weather, farm pests, the new way to kill the pests, news, politics but mostly they shared and enjoyed each other individual perspective on the world.

This may seem a little long winded but it struck me the other day while reading an argument about blogging at channel9 (Check it out here) that blogs are slowly replacing friendly social interacts with 1’s and 0’s. Why do we love blogging so much? What makes it so alluring? Why will we avoid the major news sites just to find 3 sentences from some unknown a million miles away? Or why read about the adventures of our neighbours on a screen when they are sometimes only metres away? To many I think blogging has replaced the ‘chat over the backyard fence’. When you think about it though, there is something more real, more personal invested in a blog that you don’t find elsewhere. It becomes the author’s unique perspective on life, the world as they see it and we love it. Blogging to me is reminiscent of a farmyard chat but in years to come will our social interaction be limited to an exchange of keystrokes? I hope when I’m old and grey some friendly folks pay me a visit and blogs the old fashion way over some coffee and scones(with jam and cream of course).