Problem restoring a database to a SQL Server 2012 LocalDB Instance

I encountered a bit of a weird one today, which took some creative thinking to sort out, involving restoring a database into a SQL Server 2012 LocalDB. I am still not entirely sure what the root cause of the problem really is, but I'm sharing my solution just in case it proves useful to anybody else.

Match a user's username to their SID

If you've ever poked around in the Windows Registry on a multi-user machine you may have noticed that user settings are stored against an SID such as  S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-500.

Often it's useful to be able to match an SID up to a user name and here's how:

1) Open a command prompt.
2) Type: wmic useraccount get name,sid
3) Press enter

You'll then see a list such as the following, giving you the user name and the associated SID:


Name            SID
Administrator   S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-500
Guest           S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-501
HomeGroupUser$  S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-1002
Martin          S-1-5-21-2827067247-3228746870-1612205067-1000

Simples!

Pulp-O-Mizer!

Here's a fun pulp magazine cover image creator - the Pulp-o-Mizer!

http://thrilling-tales.webomator.com/derange-o-lab/pulp-o-mizer/pulp-o-mizer.html

And here's something I knocked up...

Windows 8 is a terrible tablet OS

Regular readers of Pieces o' Eight may remember my critique of Windows 8 as a desktop operating system last year. I still stand by those criticisms, however even at the time I had thought that the OS might fare better in a tablet environment.

It turns out I was utterly, staggeringly, badly wrong.