It's my favorite time of year again – Autumn. It gets colder, the days get shorter, leaves change colors, and there's that little annual event called PASS Summit. This year I have even more reasons to love it because I was able to work 2 more events into my trip: SQL Saturday Oregon and [Red Gate's SQL in the City][3] …
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I've been told on two occasions that the absence of the MEDIUMINT datatype is a serious shortcoming of SQL Server. If you're not familiar with MEDIUMINT, it's an integer type available in MySQL that consumes 3 Bytes and is capable of storing values ranging from -8,388,608 to 8,388,607 (signed) or from 0 to 15,777,215 …
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This month's T-SQL Tuesday (the 54th!) is brought to us by Boris Hristov (@BorisHristov), and he's asking us to write about interviews and hiring. I think many of us have at least one tale of an interview or interaction with a recruiter that's gone good, bad, or ugly. I know I've got plenty of them, two of which I've …

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This post is part of T-SQL Tuesday #52, which is being hosted this month by Michael J. Swart (@MJSwart). Michael is asking us to argue against a popular opinion, and I'm more than happy to do so, as this is a belief that I've kept to myself for quite a while.

SQL Server's row compression feature can be an amazing …

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I know most of my important file locations by heart. Whenever I need to do things that require typing out a file's full path, such as copying a backup or taking a peek at logs, I can type those paths from memory without issue.

On the other hand, when I'm working with systems I'm less familiar with or have never seen …

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The ability to keep track of what's being executed on a SQL Server instance, or to create a read-only copy of a database at a specific point in time can be very valuable if required by the solution you are developing. But a lesser-known fact about SQL Auditing and Database Snapshots is that not only do they work well …
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Pro Tip: If you're a recruiter and sending out mass emails about positions you're trying to fill, do yourself a favor and make sure you're not accidentally including other things, like a letter of reprimand from your boss. The names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent, but here's the email I received …
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With over 40 weeks to go, PASS Summit 2014 may seem like the distant future, however the planning phase is already well underway. An event like the Summit is only possible because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers, and opportunities to help this year are already starting to pop up.

One such opportunity is the …

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This year Chicago will be hosting it's 5th SQL Saturday! SQL Saturday #291: Chicago 2014 is now open for registration! As always, the event itself is free. An optional lunch will be provided for $10.

We are once again very grateful to DeVry University for hosting us. This year it will take place on Saturday April 26, …

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This post is part of the DBA JumpStart series being written by myself and 19 other professionals from the SQL Server community and coordinated by John Sansom (@SQLBrit). It has been compiled into a free eBook, which can be found here. Be sure to download a copy!

If you could give an aspiring DBA just one piece of …

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