Manifests in VB6

As usual after much beating of head against the wall this turns out be pretty straightforward.

Why would you need a manifest?

A manifest file will enable you to control how your program interacts with Windows User Access Control (UAC). It won't stop UAC being invoked but you can make sure your program gets the level of access you require rather than just hanging or having to get the user to set the program to "Run as Administrator".

There are plenty of examples of manifest files on the internet.

If your program is called "Fred.exe" the manifest file is named "fred.exe.manifest" and the name is set to "fred.exe" in the manifest.

You can either just place the manifest in the installation folder which seems easiest or embed it in the program.

The key things to know are -

Windows will only look for the manifest file once. If you add a manifest file to an existing installation folder it will be ignored unless you alter the time stamp of the exe file so including it in your set up package is best.

The Version number in the manifest file appears to be ignored so you can just use 1.0.0.0 without worrying about keeping it in line with the actual exe version.

If you require Administrator access to be requested when the program runs set the requiredexecutionlevel to "requireAdministrator" uiaccess="false"

Inflation - time to do some sums

I wish people would pay a bit more attention to the figures.

As of 18th October 2011 inflation is 5.2%. This means that something that cost you £100 in October 2010 (a year ago) now costs £105.20.

The Bank of England tells us inflation will be only 3% next year as if that means prices will be coming down. They're not - it just means they will have gone up slightly less than this year.

So in October next year the thing that cost you £100 in 2010, £105.20 in 2011 will now cost £108.35. Unless inflation is less than Zero prices have gone up compared to the same period the previous year.

Or put another way if you were earning £25,000 in 2010 you'll need 27,000 in 2012 just to stand still. If you don't get a rise how do you think you will cope with a loss of a months wages?

Even 2% inflation means you are loosing a weeks wages every year.

Jobs - what jobs?

Not a reference to Apple, just a link to the real world.

The blunt news is that there are no jobs. Zip, rien, nothing. If you are in the white collar sector a computer has your job. If you are blue collar a foreigner has it.

It's not going to get any better any time soon.

You can only compete with the rest of the world if you have something to sell them that they can't do themselves.

Nope, I can't think of anything either.

CLOUD = Complete Loss of Your Data

OK, bit of a stretch on your but you get the picture.

As lots of Blackberry users have just discovered reliance on an external supplier is not necessarily a good idea.

A RIM Server goes down and takes out the system. Chances of recovering the huge amounts of data whilst maintaining service are not high.

Once a big on-line system is broke it is very difficult if not impossible to fix as you are trying to add new transactions to possibly corrupt data.

Ask the Inland Revenue.

BTW, I will claim copyright on the Complete Loss of Your Data phrase as I I fear it will be in increasingly common usage.

Changes...

Necessity may be the mother of invention but discontent makes the world go around.

Without a niggling feeling of general unhappiness with out lot most people would do nothing to change their lives.

If you are fed up with the weather in your current area you can choose to just accept it, constantly whinge about it or do something about it, which will most probably result in moving to another region where the climate is allegedly more in line with your desires.

The accepting types form the stoic background of our societies who can be depended upon to quietly accept whatever iniquities whoever is currently in power decide to burden them with, just don’t expect much from a group who are largely content with a nice comfy pair of slippers and a yellow cardigan with leather buttons.

The malcontents are frankly just a pain in the backside. Meet them in ten years time and they’ll still be going on about the same objects of their discontent but with some embellishment as to why they haven’t actually done anything.

Those who actively make changes in their lives for whatever reason are the drivers of the world. They make something happen. The “something” may not always be the desired result but without it we only suffer from stagnation.

In a perverse way it is probably the plodders who are most content in life. Those seeking change are quite likely to be always looking for the greener grass. The knowledge that you can change your world is a powerful and sometime destructive force.

Pension off the Pension

If you are employed by the state don't read any further. You still will not appreciate what a good deal you have and how much you annoy everybody else when you complain about your pension.

If you are a banker or one of the few who still have a final salary pension you should probably also look away now.

Still here?

OK I'll assume you are one of the poor unfortunates in the Private Sector who have been consistently shafted by the pension companies, banks and the government in no particular order.

Fact is most people in the private sector don't have a pension or at best have one that is worth around £20,000 which is pretty much the same as not having a pension.

But let's say you are fortunate enough to have £100,000 in your pension "pot". Sorted right? Wrong. You'll be very lucky to get a £100 a week when you retire.

That is of course assuming your pension fund hasn't just lost 20 to 30% of its value because the stock market has gone down (again).

What can you do?

Pretty much buggar all if you already have a pension fund.

Try to move it to a Sipp with the lowest charges you can find. Do not under any circumstances go anywhere near the rapacious individuals known as Independent Financial Advisors who for a mere 2 - 3% of your fund will advise you where to lose your money. even with inflation at 2% that would mean your £100,000 becomes around £95,000 in real terms over a year (charges + inflation) so if you put in a £100 a week (£5,200 a year) you are just standing still.

Look at it this way. The country is broke. Your pension fund is used by the markets to their advantage, not yours. Governments will find ever more inventive ways of taking your money. Even when if) you retire you can only get 25% of your own money. The rest you have to bet against an insurance company as to how long you are going to live.

Save by all means, but save it under your control. Then you can invest in what you like, spend it if and when you need to and it's not likely to do a disappearing act at periodic intervals.

Unless of course that you think endowment policies were a good idea along with every other financial product you have been stitched up with over the years.

Sage 2012

Sage Line 50 2012

We have been using the Beta copy of the software and also attended the Sage dEvent that provided an overview of what’s new and changed in the 2012 version.

Although Sage haven’t changed the underlying file system they have made changes to how Sage caches data and tried to improve the locking mechanisms so that some operations will no longer lock out all the other users.

Our initial speed tests show no overall difference (possibly a bit slower) on straight speed but the record locking and caching may make day-to-day operations less prone to other users being locked out and support higher levels of concurrency.

The cosmetic screen appearance has been updated to make it more contemporary and various processes modified to give the user more feedback that Sage is actually doing something (rather than having them reboot the machine because nothing is apparently happening and thus corrupting data).

Data can now also be “locked” so that transactions can’t be posted to a previous period which should keep the accountants happy. This is set via User Rights although the default is to allow it which seems a bit perverse.

The Help -> About screen now provides far more diagnostic information and they also seem to have sneaked in a remote control option for Sage Support technicians.

Internally there are changes to the way the SDK works in some areas so developers will need to make code changes in various areas including Net Value Discounts (which was absurdly difficult to do previously), Customer Discounts and Invoice Auto Numbering.

The Transaction Post has also been updated to perform more checks on the data such as making sure the specified nominal code is correct for the type of transaction (not a Bank Account if posting an SI for example).

Installation has been streamlined and made more straightforward for network configuration.

There are various UI enhancements including new Quick Search Options and a Quick Print button.

Data checking has been speeded up and offers more selective repair options than the previous blanket “Fix” button.

The existing SData Service will be available to developers in Beta format. Essentially it is a web interface which sits on top of the SDO to enable low volume web based interrogation and update of Sage data. (You would for example only perform an action on a single account rather than a bulk process)

Overall it’s the same (very) old file system that they have tried to wring a bit more performance out of it by doing things that they should have done years ago but now seem to be taking a bit more seriously. I guess the cash cow needed a bit of feeding.

Let’s hope there isn’t the usual “oops” moment in the first live release. As usual wait and see before upgrading.

Developers Program Changes

Sage are also planning to introduce a Certification program for third party applications.

This will be an annual test priced at around £600 per product.

We certainly won’t be pursuing this option as it would push our Sage fees up to well over £5000 per year. We’re confident in our products and the level of support we provide without entering into essentially what is an expensive box ticking Certification exercise.

Incidentally Sage say they have around 600 Sage 50 registered developers which on current fees I would calculate is generating them around 1 million pounds a year in revenue and must be very profitable already.

Emailing Sage documents

This is something I have never really looked into but a client wanted to do this and so necessitated a bit of investigation.

Short story is that it is possible and very simple to use but a bit less than obvious to set up and of course different depending on the version of Sage you have.

Essentially you need to use the Report Designer to set up the Email Settings which will create a default Email configuration for all reports set to send via Email.

If you are using Outlook choose MAPI otherwise choose SMTP and enter your ISP Mail Server details. There is also an Outlook option that is apparently only relevant for Outlook 2010 on a 64 bit system.

Then for individual reports you set up the email options (such as setting the email address to be picked up from the Sales Account Email field and Subject text etc)

Once set up you can just select the Invoices in the Invoicing Module and click on the Email button (in Sage versions prior to 2011 it is a bit more long winded)

There is a Sage Knowledge Base article 12659 that provides some information. The independent Sage Forum also has a succinct How to on setting up Invoices to Email.

On Windows 7/Sage 2012 at least the SMTP mail configuration appears to be stored in ProgramData\Sage\SMTP\SMTPConfiguration.xml and includes the username and password in clear text, which might not be the most secure way to do things.

Autoglass - Don't

Against my better judgement I recently got Autoglass to fix a small chip on the passenger side of my windscreen.

Nothing wrong with the service or the repair - in fact it was beyond reproach. What I couldn't work out is how this could be "free".

Now I know.

The adverts tell you it won't affect your no claim discount. What they don't tell you is that it counts as a claim on your insurance.

Mine went up by £200 as a result.

And I don't expect it will go down again any time soon.

So it is a scam.

Autoglass get x pounds from the Insurance company who then up your premium with no risk to themselves.

Don't do it.

By the way I have complained to the ASA, but I'm not holding my breath.

SMB2 or how to corrupt your data without really trying

I don't think Microsoft have ever really got the hang of the idea that people might use computers for applications that just might require data integrity.

Deep down they are just a desktop company, bit of Office, nothing serious, mostly works if you are lucky. Good job Dave Cutler came along. Clearly real world issues aren't high on the list probably because they're too busy counting the money and coming up with the next ill concieved way to screw something up.

SMB2 - Microsoft have previous on this whole area but as far as I can see SMB2 will corrupt just about every application that uses file sharing due to caching and metadata issues. Perhaps there should be a new 4 letter word at Microsoft called "TEST". "Think" might also be good. Or just stop "fixing" things that mostly work (or at least we have got used to and know how to workaround).

We are moving into ill considered areas now. What happens when your Cloud evaporates?

There is so much data recovery is almost impossible.

The same applies to large scale systems - the HMRC system is broken and I can't see how it will ever be fixed. It's a live system that we know is wrong that we are adding data to every day. So at best it will be an approximation of our affairs and it will be up to the end user to spot the more obvious errors whilst being told "the computer says no".

Meanwhile all our data is being hacked because even large companies (never mind the small ones) we hand over all bank details to have apparently never heard of the idea of encrypting passwords.

There seems to be a blind assumption by everybody that all this stuff actually works.

It doesn't.

Sage and Windows 7

Following on from our Sage 50 and Vista testing we have now had the time to carry out Windows 7 performance tests.

The good news is it doesn't seem to have the performance sapping cache effect of Vista and performance is much the same as XP (even though it's running on an iCore-5 as against XP on a Pentium P4 2.8ghz. Oh well).

Interestingly, swapping from 100mbit Ethernet to 1gb made almost no difference to our Sage performance test results although a straight 25mb file copy was around 4 times faster.

Sage 50 and Vista - slower than a slow thing

Ok, I know Vista is now water under the bridge but there are still a lot of these misbegotton systems about.

Recently I have been investigating the use of NAS devices with Sage Line 50 and spending a lot ot time analysing the performance using our Sage testing tool, Transfix.

What was strange was that the first run of the test was quite fast, but each subsequent run became slower and slower until it botommed out at about 3 times slower than the initial test.

Odd.

To cut a long story short the problem is with Vista caching the data to RAM.

On the first run, all the data (in this case a 30mb Sage file) is read across the network. Each subsequent run loads more of this data in the Cache until eventually there is no network traffic at all when the file is read ; it all comes from the cache. You can observe this by monitoring the NIC Status and using Task Manager to see the cache grow.

Sadly the Sage SDO is around 2.5 times (60 seconds vs 150 seconds) slower reading directly from RAM than from the network.

The file is only cleared from cache when a process causes the the file to be updated which then restores normal performance until the file becomes cached again. There does not appear to be any way of controlling this behaviour.

I have no idea if this affects other programs but certainly Sage doesn't like it.

XP doesn't have this problem and I haven't got around to testing Windows 7 yet.

Does nobody test this stuff?