From time to time your sql database will get stuck in Restoring state.  Here are two different ways to get your database out of restoring state. 

RESTORE DATABASE MyDatabase 
   FROM DISK = ‘MyDatabase.bak’ 
   WITH REPLACE,RECOVERY

1. Stop the service (MSSQLSERVER);
2. Rename or delete the Database and Log files (C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.1\MSSQL\Data…) or wherever you have the files;
3. Start the service (MSSQLSERVER);
4. Delete the database with problem;
5. Restore the database again.

Handy tool for conveting code inbetween VB and C# or vice versa.

http://converter.telerik.com/

C# code for if you are trying to get the mp3 length or duration of a media file.  You will need to reference Windows Media Player.  Go to Com Add-ins to add the wmp.dll to your project. 

string Duration = null;
WMPLib.WindowsMediaPlayer w = new WMPLib.WindowsMediaPlayer();
WMPLib.IWMPMedia m = w.newMedia(Filename);
if (m != null) {
 Duration = m.durationString;
}
w.close();

  In Classic ASP we used to replace line breaks or vbCrLf tags in the following way.

strValue = Replace(strValue, vbCrLf, "<br>")

In ASP.NET it is a bit different.  Now we have the Environment.NewLine command that will determine the coding environment you are running in either VB or C#.  So you can replace the line break command wether it is vbCrLf or /n.

string strValue = strValue;

strValue.Text = strValue.Replace(Environment.NewLine, "<br/>");

ORDER BY items must appear in the select list if the statement contains a UNION, INTERSECT or EXCEPT operator.

 To fix this problem I put my Union statement into a derived table by doing the following.

SELECT * FROM (

SELECT Column1, Column2 FROM Table_A

UNION ALL

SELECT Column1, Column2 FROM Table_B

) DerivedTableName (Column1, Column2)

Next I added in my dynamic Order By code as such.

SELECT * FROM (

SELECT Column1, Column2 FROM Table_A

UNION ALL

SELECT Column1, Column2 FROM Table_B

) DerivedTableName (Column1, Column2)

ORDER BY

CASE @OrderBy WHEN ‘Column1ASC’ THEN Column1 END ASC,

CASE @OrderBy WHEN ‘Column1DESC’ THEN Column1 END DESC

First off what is CAPTCHA?  It stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.  CAPTCHA is basically an image of letters and numbers that is randomly generated.  The image makes it difficult for spam bots to read.  So they can be used as a way to verify if a computer is submitting a form on a website or an actual person.  So we can eliminate all of that pesky spam!

The reCAPTCHA software is free to use and also helps digitize books when it is being used.  Check out their site for more information on that.

I needed to implement this software on a site that runs Classic ASP.  They did not have a specific example on how to do this but I was able to find an example done from a very kind person Andre F. Bruton on the discussion boards.  Click here to go and view the example.

Update it appears that the above site has gone down so here is a link to the example that was offered by that site.

Download the example.

The example worked great I just had to insert the code into my pages and I was off and running in no time.  However on a few of the pages I was running them in SSL which when using the reCAPTCHA software on those page brought up some secure errors.  Through searching around the internet and trying various things I found out that reCAPTCHA has a secure server to send to so you will no longer get the security errors.  That URL is https://api-secure.recaptcha.net. 

Here is an example of where you need to put it in your code.

function recaptcha_challenge_writer(publickey)
recaptcha_challenge_writer = “<script type=”"text/javascript”">” & _
“var RecaptchaOptions = {” & _
” theme : ‘white’,” & _
” tabindex : 0″ & _
“};” & _
“</script>” & _
“<script type=”"text/javascript”" src=”"https://api-secure.recaptcha.net/challenge?k=” & publickey & “”"></script>” & _
“<noscript>” & _
“<iframe src=”"http://api.recaptcha.net/noscript?k=” & publickey & “”" frameborder=”"1″”></iframe><br>” & _
“<textarea name=”"recaptcha_challenge_field”" rows=”"3″” cols=”"40″”></textarea>” & _
“<input type=”"hidden”" name=”"recaptcha_response_field”" value=”"manual_challenge”">” & _
“</noscript>”
end function