If there is one thing that can be said about technical problems, it’s this – you get immense satisfaction when you finally crack them. But until then they are pure unadulterated pain in the neck – to put it mildly.

Since yesterday my Team Lead and I have been trying to figure out why our .NET application is not able to connect to the MySql database when we are trying to host it. We have trawled the net to such an extent that there is practically no link left that we have not yet visited. We have followed every suggestion – whether or not that makes sense. We have set the use of dynamic ports. We have tweaked the Firewall. We have used ping, netstat and other assorted networking commands. No use! Frustrated and defeated, we decided to call it a day yesterday.

It is back to the grind today. The way I am going about searching, I should be given a medal for coming up with innovative search parameters. I was thinking of good old Albert Einstein who famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I was on the umpteenth search result when the following line made me stop in my tracks….

I'm new to SQL related matters so please bare with my lack of knowledge and asking a question which has been asked countless times before

And laugh my heart out. Oh Boy! Needless to say, after a good hearty laugh, I was ready to search again!