When I started this blog I had zero intention of reviewing movies. I wanted to stick to technical topics with perhaps a few book reviews in-between. That goal hasn’t changed, but after seeing “The Social Network” this past weekend I decided an exception would be appropriate. In my opinion, the SQL Server community gets …
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Most T-SQL guides and tutorials I've seen concentrate on the following transaction commands: BEGIN, COMMIT, and ROLLBACK, which I'll henceforth refer to as the "big three". While they're certainly very important, there's also a fourth command, SAVE, which is typically treated like a distant cousin who's only …
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I had the immense pleasure of speaking at SQL Saturday #50 in Iowa City this past weekend. To say it was an awesome time would be quite the understatement. Special thanks to Michelle Ufford (blog | twitter), Ed Leighton-Dick (twitter) and Jeff Belina (twitter) for all you did to make this event possible. Also a giant …
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This post is my contribution to T-SQL Tuesday #10, which is being hosted by Michael J. Swart (blog | twitter)

Each year my Boy Scout troop has a rummage sale as a fundraiser.  All the scouts and their families gather up their old clothes, books, toys, electronics, and any other treasures they no longer need and donate …

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Let's say you're starting off in a new environment (new job, department, client, whatever) and after being shown your workspace and meeting with your supervisor, you sit down to start figuring out their databases.  You send an email requesting the name of the development database, and the reply you get is as follows: …
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I feel extremely honored to have the chance to speak at SQLSaturday #50, which is taking place in Iowa City on September 18th.  The organizers have put together a great schedule consisting of some amazing speakers and somehow I got on the list too!

I'll be giving a talk called "Application Coding Sins."  As …

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In my previous post I looked at 4 reasons to learn the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK).  I'll now take a look at the other side and give you 4 reasons why you might not want to.

1.  You're Already A Good Typist

If you're reading this, chances are pretty good you're a DBA, developer, consultant, or someone else who …

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For quite a while now I've been intrigued by the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard (DSK).  I was first introduced to it by my mentor at an internship during college, and after reading about how Dr. Dvorak's layout of the keys came to be, I thought it would be neat to learn given its advantages.  After giving it more thought, …
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Take a moment to think about the really important passwords you use – maybe for your computer at work, email, financial information, or even the 'sa' account on SQL Server.  How many characters long are they?  Are they really all that difficult?  Are they:

• Dictionary words?
• Words with a few numbers or symbols …

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This month's T-SQL Tuesday is brought to us by Jason Brimhall (Blog | Twitter) and he's asking what we do to prepare for some time off.   Databases don’t take any time off, and in my experience DBAs rarely do either.  We do earn our vacation like every other employee though, and every once in a while we might even be …
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