Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type int [Digg.com This!]

In SQL Server I get the following error when I try to COUNT(*) rows in very large tables:

"Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type int."

Googling and sifting through pages about the same problem for SUM( ), I found you can use this function:

COUNT_BIG(*)

This uses a bigint rather than int for storage.

PVR Error - Mustek PVRA1 or Goodmans GPDR-1 / GPDR1 / GDPR 1 [Digg.com This!]

I have the Goodmans GPDR-1, a quite handy little MP4 video recorder. Unfortunately it has an issue where (under what looks like a race condition when you press multiple buttons simultaneously) it sometimes replaces the menu icons with white on black text saying "PVR Error". The device itself works fine, but you can't understand the menu!

I took my first GPDR-1 back to Argos and got a replacement and (touch wood) other than momentarily seeing the "PVR Error" icons (and turning it straight off and on again to recover), I've not had the problem.

Goodmans tech support is useless, saying they haven't seen this problem before. I've recently come across a couple of useful links:

You can flash upgrade the Goodmans (and I assume Mustek, although I've not tried it) from this firmware:

http://pvra1.newmedia.nl/firmware/index.html

I have successfully upgraded my 2.5 device to 2.7.

This page also gives a hint on how you may be able to recover the "PVR Error" icons to their proper equivalent:

http://pvra1.newmedia.nl/gui/manual.html

I haven't tried this yet.

Good luck if you're having this problem. Please leave a comment below or email me so I can keep this page up to date with fixes.

Exchange Server '12' requires Microsoft Management Console 3.0 [Digg.com This!]

Today I was installing an Exchange 12 Community Technology Preview (CTP) release and came across the following message:

"Exchange Server '12' requires Microsoft Management Console 3.0"

That was even though I was installing on Windows 2003 Server R2 64 bit (which already comes with MMC3) and also took the precaution to install it!

Turns out Exchange 12 CTP requires an earlier version of MMC3 so it doesn't think it's installed.

Thanks to Jim McBee's Blog I was pointed to a post by Nino Bilic, one of the MS Exchange team:

Resolving MMC 3.0 errors when installing Exchange 12 CTP release

This involves either installing an earlier version or setting a simple reg key. Thanks Jim and Nino!