http://handbrake.fr/

Pretty good especially that it has a FREE version too that serves basic needs very well

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp

http://infrarecorder.org/

http://www.wireshark.org/

(This could be considered as an alternative for netstumbler which might have been revived by its author at http://stumbler.net/)

• Useful to restrict bandwidth and also to test how applications would behave based on available bandwidth
• Used it once a couple of years ago. works great. There is a free single user versionhttp://bandwidthcontroller.com/download.html

PS >
PS > [array]$names = @()
PS > $names += "Q"
PS > $names += "picard"
PS > $names += "spock"
PS > $names += 10

PS > $names.Count
4

PS > $names[2]
spock

PS > $names[6]

PS > $names
Q
picard
spock
10
PS >
PS > $names.count = 2
"Length" is a ReadOnly property.
At line:1 char:8
+ $names. <<<< count = 2
 + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [], RuntimeException
 + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PropertyAssignmentExceptionPS >

PS > $names.GetType()
IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     Object[]                                 System.Array

PS > $names[4]
10
PS > $names[4].GetType()
IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     Int32                                    System.ValueType

PS > $names[2]
spock
PS > $names[2].GetType()
IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType
-------- -------- ----                                     --------
True     True     String                                   System.Object

When declaring an array of one, it might not be an Array

Consider an array of arrays, an array of two elements, each element is in turn an array

PS> $a = @( @("row1-a", "row1-b", "row1-c"), @("row2-a", "row2-b") )
PS> $a.count
2
PS>$a[0].count
3
PS>$a[1].count
2

Now an array of one – not what we would normally expect

PS> $a = @( @("row1-a", "row1-b", "row1-c") )
PS> $a.Count
3

$a becomes just array of three strings instead of an array of 1 element, to get this you have to start the array declaration with a comma

PS> $a = @(, @("row1-a", "row1-b", "row1-c") )
PS> $a.Count
1

Starting an array with more than one element with a comma is fine, it does not add an extra empty element at the beginning 

References:

http://www.vistax64.com/powershell/13950-how-add-entries-array.html

http://www.powershellpro.com/powershell-tutorial-introduction/variables-arrays-hashes/

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1390782/jagged-powershell-array-is-losing-a-dimension-when-only-one-element-exists

http://www.justaprogrammer.net/2011/03/30/an-array-of-one-item-in-powershell/

exit <returnvalue>

Use return value in other environments like cmd, msbuild

When running the script from other environments like cmd or msbuild we normally use

powershell.exe <scriptname.ps1>

this does not get the actual error value returned from the script, the return value from this command will be ’0′ if there was no error or no return value and ’1′ if the script exited with an error value. To get the actual error value returned from the script use

powershell.exe <scriptname.ps1>; exit $LastExitCode

References:

http://blog.brianhartsock.com/2009/10/20/using-powershell-scripts-from-msbuild-scheduled-tasks-etc/
http://powershell.com/cs/blogs/tips/archive/2009/05/18/returning-exit-code-from-script.aspx
http://weblogs.asp.net/soever/archive/2010/07/14/returning-an-exit-code-from-a-powershell-script.aspx

See Also

 - Learnt that the SQL Browser Service has to be running - this is not required for a single instance. Multiple sql server instances need the sql browser service to be running for proper connection from clients

Did not find many links related to this when trying to fix the problem  but searching for sql browser service and jdbc now brings up some useful information
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip=1946
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181087.aspx (via http://bytes.com/topic/sql-server/answers/808470-sql-server-browser-service)

CrystalDiskMark – http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalDiskMark/index-e.html
(Note: install also prompts to install PC Matic – PC Pitstop free scan which is another 3rd party program to test overall performance and is not from CrystalDiskMark)