For example, last week I went to the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, CA. I knew it was in the desert somewhere, and didn’t have the full address, so I put in Indian Wells, CA. Google then assumed I meant the significantly further, unincorporated community between Sequoia National Forest and Edwards Air Force Base, and gave me directions based on that, rather than the much, much closer Indian Wells by Palm Springs. Thankfully we only drove the wrong way for about 5-10 miles before we realized what was happening.

Here is what you get if you search for Indian Wells, CA with Google maps on the iPhone or at google.com: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Indian+Wells,+CA&sll=33.688907,-117.832607&sspn=0.008659,0.013754&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Indian+Wells,+Kern,+California&ll=35.771029,-117.957458&spn=1.080783,1.760559&z=9. Or just try the search yourself. Today is March 21, 2010, btw, just in case this behavior becomes obsolete one day.

This is what you get when you search at bing: http://www.bing.com/maps/#JnE9eXAuSW5kaWFuK1dlbGxzJTJjK0NBJTdlc3N0LjAlN2VwZy4xJmJiPTQ5Ljk3MjM3Mjc0NjEyOCU3ZS04OC4wNjM3NTEyMjElN2UxMy41Mjg0NDQ0MTkzNjAxJTdlLTE0Ny4xMjYyNTEyMjE=. Bing nicely points out that there are two possibilities.

So now I suddenly remembered how I was unable to find another address several weeks ago. My aunt invited me to a dumpling-making party in celebration of Chinese New Years. In an email, she gave me the address as “412 Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805.” Much, much more complete than “Indian Wells, Ca.” We never found the place however. Fast forward to today. I found a paper invite, with an even more complete version of the address. “412 EAST Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805.” Oh, damn. Again, if you dump “412 Broadway, Anaheim, CA 92805″ in Google, it will spit out one location. Bing will point out that there are two.

I’m starting to wish Apple would decouple the iPhone from Google maps and allow the user to specify a different map app (is there a way that I don’t know of?). But the Google maps integration is so good. All your contacts show up as bookmarks in your google maps if you have addresses listed for them, and you can access their phone number straight from the maps app, too. Handy if you’re about to arrive and need to call.

SQL Server Management Studio 2005 forgets password

As does the 2008 version. I ran into this issue and was (not) surprised to find that the bug dating back to version 2005 had still not been fixed.  Hey, at least you can delete some files to fix it though.

Edit: Just to make it more clear, from Voot’s post in the link above, you need to go to C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell

and delete SqlStudio.bin.

Make sure SSMS is not running when you delete it. Fire up SSMS again. All your credentials will be gone, so you’ll need to reenter them, but it should remember them from here on out. I have no idea what causes it to initially mess up.

On another note, it’s not often you see a woman write something like the following (what can I say, there’s not that many women in my field):

It doesn’t take too long to set up a tool to monitor a file or directory – you can download FileMon from:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/FileAndDisk/Filemon.mspx

The Connect to Server dialog can pop up in different situations where there is no security context for the connection to use. If you use registered servers (and save the password there) when you view the registered servers, select a server in the Registered Servers task pane and then click New Query on the toolbar or Right Click, Connect, Object Explorer or New Query which will result in connecting under the security context you used when registering the server. If a server isn’t selected, there is no security context available so the Connect to Server dialog pops up. I haven’t heard of passwords  being “lost” or “forgotten” using the registered servers task pane and saving registration information there.

Good info.