I’m a big fan of code that writes code – most of the time. For instance, whenever you use the “templates” feature in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) or the Maintenance Wizard, you’re using code that writes other code. There’s even a trick of writing...

I give series of classes and presentations on Data Design. I say “data” design instead of “database” design because we should consider more than just the database. Data might actually be stored in non-relational stores, such as Excel or XML files, and...

Whew!  That’s a mouthfull. Anyway, I thought I would share part of a script I wrote today to help automate (more) from PowerShell. This assumes a few things: that you’re doing this from the SQL Server 2008 PowerShell provider (not just good old regular...

Sometimes issues pop up with your system. You need a way to find help, quickly. Here’s a few links that might be useful – feel free to post a reply to this post with other sources you might know, from web sources to your favorite consultant. Note ...

SQL Server runs under the aegis of a “service” in Windows. That means it’s running in the background all of the time. A Service in Windows requires the ability to “log on” to the system – even if you don’t see that happening. Which brings us to this post...

My friend Brent Ozar, who is a top-notch SQL Server Professional, mentioned on his blog ( http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2007/04/sql-server-health-check/comment-page-1/#comment-17520 ) that he brought in Microsoft Support to do a “Health Check”. There...

In version 2.0 of PowerShell, you can now use a direct command-let (get-Counter) to get at the Performance Monitor counters. For instance, to show the current value of the Processor Percent Time, use this command:   Get-Counter '\Processor(*)\% Processor...

Well, It’s happened again. Hundreds of thousands of private records were stolen from a database . This one, however, was different. No one stole any passwords, no one did any social engineering, nothing was captured in-line. No, this one was accomplished...

Did you notice that there are a lot of "little" things that were improved in SQL Server 2008? One of those was done by one of my favorite developers and deals with multi-monitor support. In previous versions of SQL Server Management Studio you could open...

Microsoft is a big company – and of course we have a lot of IT infrastructure that we have to manage. It might surprise you to learn that we have an IT group, just like at your company. We have a networking team, a server hardware team, software teams...

OK, there are probably a dozen or more of these kinds of posts, but I’ll dive in anyway. From time to time, people send me e-mails or comments on this blog asking for help. Sometimes it’s on the topic at hand, and other times the topic just jogs their...

“Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're probably right.” - Henry Ford

Right now it’s tough to get businesses to loosen the purse a little and get you out to some training. But you have features in the product that you’re not even able to use because you haven’t been trained. What’s a Data Professional to do? Why, go to...

If you’re holding a special event, such as a SQL Saturday or a user group, one of the challenges is to get speakers for the event. Now, the best speakers come from the community – people who use the product day-in, day-out. They have a wealth of expertise...

They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. - Andy Warhol

A good friend of mine years ago showed me this web site: http://www.rheingold.com/texts/tft/ . I took my lunch hour each day for a week or so and read each “page” on this site. It deals with computer technology history in a way that I had never read before...

Saturday I volunteered at a work-day at our church. Our building is one of the first buildings built in this area of Washington, so it’s a beautiful old structure, which of course means there’s lots of maintenance. I’m fairly decent with tools, I’ve done...

I’ve gotten hooked on TED-talks. I don’t know if you’ve ever  seen these, but the basic idea is that really smart (and sometimes famous) people have less than 20 minutes to pitch a concept to other really smart people. One of the TED-talks I just...

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, "Certainly I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. Theodore Roosevelt

"It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important." - Arthur Conan Doyle