Question log from "Advanced Testing & Debugging Using the Developer Console"

The Webinar is based on the upcoming Summer '13 release.  Again I've removed less than interesting questions from the log I saved.

Question log from the "Inside the Force.com Query Optimizer" webinar

The webinar will prob. be available on the Developerforce site or their Youtube channel.  I saved the question chat log as there are a few items of interest, for instance, characteristics of skinny tables, which aren't listed anywhere in the public documentation.  I did delete questions that were too entry-level to save space.

Unable to insert EntitySubscription for users

This happened when doing an auto-follow logic.  I noticed the ES records cannot be inserted for any user who has logged on at least once since the Chatter feature is turned on.  The error message is:

System.DmlException: Insert failed. First exception on row 0; first error: DUPLICATE_VALUE, duplicate value found: <unknown> duplicates value on record with id: <unknown>: []

WebLink entity (capital L)

The Guide for the Force.com Migration Tool is prob. the least well maintained documentation for the platform.  I've never seen so many inaccurate items in any other documents (search "Migration" on my blog for more).  Here's one I kept forgetting to write about: the WebLink entity, which is meant for the custom links used on page layouts.  Note the capital L in the name, which in the Guide is lower case ("Weblink"). Using lowercase will give you "Entity type: 'Weblink' is unknown", as the manifest file is very much properly XML, i.e., case sensitive.

Happy debugging!

IE 10 and Lotus Notes

No dice.  I had to remove IE 10 delivered by Windows Update because Notes Web access stopped working afterwards.  So, it has to go - yeah, it should be Lotus Notes (in 2013?!) - but...  It's pretty painless to do (except that you'll have to restart of course).  Note on Windows 7 it's under the Updates Installed section in Programs and Features - it's treated as an update, not an independent program.

How to package workflow components

Again the official force.com documentation for the Migration Tool is lacking here.  This is a good link to illustrate the options that are missing the official doc.

http://pradeepgali.blogspot.com/2012/01/how-to-package-single-workflow-using.html

Also one more thing to keep in mind.  WorkflowRule is one component that you're allowed to use any visible character as the name.  However you should not do that for the sake of using the Migration Tool, because it will URL encode (almost) all the special characters.  Space, dash, and underscore are OK, but parenthesis becomes %28 and %29 in your retrieved components.  This then would not match your package.xml, which causes an error when you deploy.  So, stay away from special characters in your names, even when you are not forced to by the UI.  The same goes with Layout names.

Some musings on the evolution of computing

Opinion: How Microsoft’s Surface just might kill the iPad

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-microsofts-surface-just-might-kill-the-ipad/#ixzz2LgjN86Se

The opinion may or may not prove to be right, but the historical perspectives juxtaposed here are very interesting.  Both Microsoft and Apple, along with their leaders, had such intertwined views on tablet form factors that were at surprisingly opposing, and ever changing positions from time to time.  It's really humbling to realize that even brilliant human beings like Gates and Jobs, could really get things wrong sometimes - they are, after all, just human.