One of the T1's at work just went down. I was just sitting here burning time waiting for Einstein Bagels to open, and thought I'd go surfing around. Luvly. The good part about being a telecommuter is that you can quickly catch any network outages: the bad part is that ...
Got my game face on. I've always been the kind of guy to make strange faces and noises while programming, and working at home has increased my wackiness. While testing a new stored procedure, the webcam caught me with my fist up, getting ready to give my computer the finger if it ...
The database server is undergoing maintenance at work, so I've got a few minutes. (And no, the machine pictured here isn't the server.) I surfed over to Tom's Hardware, one of my favorite review sites, and they've got an excellent evaluation of the new mini-ITX motherboards from Via. Mini-ITX is ...
Anybody who complains about Iraq not heeding the Geneva Convention guidelines would do well to read up on the history of our own country's actions during our war for independence against the British. The Redcoats came marching onto the battlefield in formation, as was the military custom of that day, and our Minutemen picked ...
I went to the Bayou City Art Festival this weekend and left with a conviction that I'm doing the right things with my life. Odd, eh? I went specifically to meet up with Jimmy Ellis, a Dallas artist whose web site I did a long time ago. I love his stuff - ...
Most SQL Server DBAs don’t even like MySQL, let alone NoSQL. They cringe when they hear people say things like, “I don’t need transactions” or “The data will eventually be consistent” or “Indexes will be supported in the next version.” SQL Server and Oracle people are constantly trying to out-feature each other, and the abject [...]
Read More »In August 2008, Lady Gaga released her premier album The Fame. This 13-track work produced several hit singles including Just Dance, Poker Face, and Paparazzi – but it also produced plenty of controversy. Her exaggerated use of fashion, musical cliches, and sex gave her plenty of media attention – both good and bad. If you’ve [...]
Read More »Pop quiz: should you be worried if your SQL Server’s page life expectancy is averaging 214? There’s only one correct answer: it depends.
Performance tuning is all about finding the RIGHT bottleneck, focusing on it, and fixing it to the application owner’s satisfaction. Learn what happens if you don’t do it right.
Read More »Erika’s friends call her “Fancy Feast” because she only likes the best things in life. She’s got champagne tastes, but we can’t afford to buy the best of everything. I recently picked up a coffee table from Ikea, and it got me thinking about SQL Azure.
In a perfect world, I’d have on-premise SQL Server for every database. I’d use cutting-edge storage and cluster everything. But this isn’t a perfect world…
Read More »I get a lot of questions from people who want to get a better job. They want to know if certification, training, or branching out will help them get the job of their dreams. These things just aren’t the real answer.
The answer is simple: the Buddy System. Learn why.
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