Thursday 22 November 2012

Facebook Developer: Debugger


Not sure how many of you know about this, but check out the Facebook Debugger!

You can enter an Input URL, Access Token, or Open Graph Action ID!

View Here: http://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug

Error when saving a table in SQL Server: "Saving changes is not permitted"


Error Message
Saving changes is not permitted. The changes that you have made require the following tables to be dropped and re-created. You have either made changes to a table that can't be re-created or enabled the option Prevent saving changes that require the table to be re-created.

Why?
This problem occurs when the Prevent saving changes that require the table re-creation option is enabled, and you make one or more of the following changes to the table:
  • You change the Allow Nulls setting for a column.
  • You reorder columns in the table.
  • You change the column data type.
  • You add a new column.
When you change a table so that you alter the metadata structure of the table, and then you save the table, the table must be re-created based on these changes. This may result in the loss of metadata and in a direct loss of data during the re-creation of the table.

Fixing the Problem

OPTION 1 - Using the ALTER SQL keyword to change the table definition.

Code Snippet
  1. ALTER TABLE NameOfTable ALTER COLUMN ColumnToAlter INT NOT NULL
End of Code Snippet

Option 2 - Turning off the "Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation" option. NOT RECOMMENDED!. This may cause data loss due to changes with the meta structure of the table. A good example of potential data loss is if you enable Change Tracking.

If you only have the table structure set up and/or data loss isn't an issue (Test Data for example), then here are the following steps to turn off this data protection feature.

1. Open SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. In the navigation pane of the Options window, click Designers.
4. Select or clear the Prevent saving changes that require the table re-creation check box, and then click OK.




Joining MP4 Files together without Re-Encoding (Windows and MAC)


OPTION 1 - MP4Join (Cross Platform) [RECOMMENDED!]

VERY simple cross platform solution to join MP4 files. Just add them to the lit, re-order them, and it will simply copy the next video on to the previous at the end of the last frame. It will output the final MP4 without loss of quality or re-encoding.

Download Here: http://www.mp4joiner.org/en


OPTION 2 - Quicktime (7 or X at time of writing). Windows users must use Quicktime PRO ONLY.

1. Open the two H264 videos in Quicktime 7. Let's suppose they are named video1.mp4 and video2.mp4.

2. Working on video1.mp4, Select All, then Copy.

3. Switch to video2.mp4, make sure the "cursor" is at the beginning of the video, then Paste. This inserts the content of video1.mp4 at the front of video2.mp4.

4. This step is probably optional. "Save As" the modified video2.mp4. You will be able to save in .mov format only. I saved as a self-contained movie, but I suppose a reference movie would work too. I used the filename "video.mov".

5. Select "Export" in the file menu to export video.mov to the joined H264 file. The "Export" to select is "Movie to MPEG-4". The preset is not important, I chose "LAN/Intranet". The preset is not important because we override it in the next step.

6. Click on "Options" to reach the settings dialog. In the Video pane, "Video Format" is selected to be "H.264". Click on the menu, select "Pass Through". As expected, all the other options will get disabled.

7. Click OK, then Save, and watch your joined file be saved at the speed of your hard disk.


OPTION 3 - MAC Users Only!

SimpleMovieX, a shareware video editor which exactly advertises this as a feature. Requires OS X 10.6 or later.

Download Here: http://simplemoviex.com/SimpleMovieX/download.html