Visual Studio 2008 MVC SQL Error

I have been trying to follow some MVC tutorials online and got to the step about ading the sql database.
Visual Studio popped up to tell me to install SQL 2005 Express, well I have SQL 2008 Express installed. Indeed the error link redirects to 2008.

I finally found out its because I installed SQL server as the default rather than the expected SQLEXPRESS instance.

To fix this I went into tools->options selected Database tools, data connections and removed the instance name from SQL Server instance name.

If you have no idea what the instance is called you can use the SQL server installation centre, choose tools then Installed SQL Server features discovery report. This will list all the instances of SQL and features installed on your computer.

Free Ebook Programming Windows phone 7

Charles Petzold author of the definitive programming Windows books has a free ebook on programming for the new Windows Phone 7. You can download it here

Windows XP Fonts

I work a lot using terminals (which look like the old DOS prompt) I have found the best font to display console output is a monospaced font Consolas. It is also very good for displaying code this was what it has been developed for. Consolas is included in Windows Vista and Windows 7 but not XP. I have found out that these can be downloaded from Microsoft. Download and install the setup and you will have consolas available.

It is part of Microsoft's clear type family and bundled with Office 2007.