Search Results

Search found 49435 results on 1978 pages for 'query string'.

Page 132/1978 | < Previous Page | 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139  | Next Page >

  • Improving 2D Range Query Performance in SQL Server

    When using the BETWEEN operator on multiple columns, you are likely using a 2D range query. Such queries perform very poorly in SQL Server. This article examines rewriting these queries for improved performance. Join SQL Backup’s 35,000+ customers to compress and strengthen your backups "SQL Backup will be a REAL boost to any DBA lucky enough to use it." Jonathan Allen. Download a free trial now.

    Read the article

  • First steps on setting up a query based server [closed]

    - by asghar ashgari
    I got a physical server at home and I want to do the following silly project to learn the concept behind server-backend development, and then do a real project later on: Idea: Turn the server to a calculator. I want any person publicly send a query to the server (i.e., 2+2) from the terminal and the server give me the result. So the question is basically where to start, what sort of software I need to install, and what sort of program I need to write?.

    Read the article

  • DAX Query Basics

    In this document I will attempt to talk you through writing your first very simple DAX queries. For the purpose of this document I will query the rather familiar Adventure Works Tabular Cube. Are you sure you can restore your backups? Run full restore + DBCC CHECKDB quickly and easily with SQL Backup Pro's new automated verification. Check for corruption and prepare for when disaster strikes. Try it now.

    Read the article

  • Translate Linq Expression to any existing Query structure?

    - by fredlegrain
    I have some kind of "data engine" between multiple "data consumer" processes and multiple "data storage" sources. I'd like to provide Linq capabilities to the "data consumer" and forward the query to the "data storage". The forwarded query should be some structured query (like, let's say, NHibernate Criteria). Is there any existing structured query library that could allow me to "just" translate a Linq Expression to such a structured query?

    Read the article

  • True / false evaluation doesn't work as expected in Scheme

    - by ron
    I'm trying to compare two booleans : (if (equal? #f (string->number "123b")) "not a number" "indeed a number") When I run this in the command line of DrRacket I get "not a number" , however , when I put that piece of code in my larger code , the function doesn't return that string ("not a number") , here's the code : (define (testing x y z) (define badInput "ERROR") (if (equal? #f (string->number "123b")) "not a number" "indeed a number") (display x)) And from command line : (testing "123" 1 2) displays : 123 Why ? Furthermore , how can I return a value , whenever I choose ? Here is my "real" problem : I want to do some input check to the input of the user , but the thing is , that I want to return the error message if I need , before the code is executed , because if won't - then I would run the algorithm of my code for some incorrect input : (define (convert originalNumber s_oldBase s_newBase) (define badInput "ERROR") ; Input check - if one of the inputs is not a number then return ERROR (if (equal? #f (string->number originalNumber)) badInput) (if (equal? #f (string->number s_oldBase)) badInput) (if (equal? #f (string->number s_newBase)) badInput) (define oldBase (string->number s_oldBase)) (define newBase (string->number s_newBase)) (define outDecimal (convertIntoDecimal originalNumber oldBase)) (define result "") ; holds the new number (define remainder 0) ; remainder for each iteration (define whole 0) ; the whole number after dividing (define temp 0) (do() ((= outDecimal 0)) ; stop when the decimal value reaches 0 (set! whole (quotient outDecimal newBase)) ; calc the whole number (set! temp (* whole newBase)) (set! remainder (- outDecimal temp)) ; calc the remainder (set! result (appending result remainder)) ; append the result (set! outDecimal (+ whole 0)) ; set outDecimal = whole ) ; end of do (if (> 1 0) (string->number (list->string(reverse (string->list result))))) ) ;end of method This code won't work since it uses another method that I didn't attach to the post (but it's irrelevant to the problem . Please take a look at those three IF-s ... I want to return "ERROR" if the user put some incorrect value , for example (convert "23asb4" "b5" "9") Thanks

    Read the article

  • error in fill datagrid whit query

    - by Amir Tavakoli
    i have a data-gride-view and i add my query to this when write my query i catch this error: The schema returned by the new query differs from the base query and this my query: SELECT B.SettingKey, 'SysSettingsDep' AS TableName, B.SettingValue, B.SettingDesc FROM SysCustomer AS A INNER JOIN SysSettingsDep AS B ON A.SettingKey = B.SettingKey UNION SELECT C.SettingKey, 'SysSettingsMachine' AS TableName, C.SettingValue, C.SettingDesc FROM SysCustomer AS A INNER JOIN SysSettingsMachine AS C ON A.SettingKey = C.SettingKey UNION SELECT D.SettingKey, 'SysSettings' AS TableName, D.SettingValue, D.SettingDesc FROM SysCustomer AS A INNER JOIN SysSettings AS D ON A.SettingKey = D.SettingKey help me to solve this, tnx

    Read the article

  • Use textbox value on submit as a query string variable

    - by Eric
    How would I take a text box value and use it in the query string on submit? I'd like it to start as this, /News?favorites=True and end up something like this after the user enters in a search and clicks search. /News?query=test&favorites=True The controller action looks like this public ActionResult Index(string query,bool favorites) { //search code } This question is something close to what I'd like to do, but I'd like to use the query string and maintain the existing values in the query string. Thanks.

    Read the article

  • Sharepoint (active directory account creation mode) - Using STSADM

    - by vivek m
    This question is regarding using STSADM command to create new site collection in Active Directory Account creation mode. My setup is like this- I have 2 virtual PCs in a Windows XP Pro SP3 host. Both VPCs are Windows Server 2003 R2. One VPC acts as the DC, DNS Server, DHCP server, has Active Directory installed and is also the Database Server. The other VPC is the domain member and it is the IIS web server, POP/SMTP server and it has WSS 3.0 installed. I created a new site using the GUI in Central Admin page. For creating a site collection under the newly created site, I needed to use the STSADM command line tool since it cannot be done from Central Admin page in Active Directory Account creation mode. Thats where i got into a problem- stsadm.exe -o createsite -url http://vivek-c5ba48dca:1111/sites/Sales -owneremail [email protected] -sitetemplate STS#1 The format of the specified domain name is invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800704BC) The following is the output from the SHarepoint LOG- * stsadm: Running createsite 9e7d Medium Initializing the configuration database connection. 95kp High Creating site http://vivek-c5ba48dca:1111/sites/Sales in content database WSS_Content_Sharepoint_1111 95kq High Creating top level site at http://vivek-c5ba48dca:1111/sites/Sales 72jz Medium Creating site: URL "/sites/Sales" 72e1 High Unable to get domain DNS or forest DNS for domain sharepointsvc.com. ErrorCode=1212 8jvc Warning #1e0046: Adding user "spsalespadmin" to OU "sharepoint_ou" in domain "sharepointsvc.com" FAILED with HRESULT -2147023684. 72k1 High Cannot create site: "http://vivek-c5ba48dca:1111/sites/Sales" for owner "@\@", Error: , 0x800704bc 8e2s Medium Unknown SPRequest error occurred. More information: 0x800704bc 95ks Critical The site /sites/Sales could not be created. The following exception occured: The format of the specified domain name is invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800704BC). 72ju High stsadm: The format of the specified domain name is invalid. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x800704BC) Callstack: at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.CreateSite(Guid gApplicationId, String bstrUrl, Int32 lZone, Guid gSiteId, Guid gDatabaseId, String bstrDatabaseServer, String bstrDatabaseName, String bstrDatabaseUsername, String bstrDatabasePassword, String bstrTitle, String bstrDescription, UInt32 nLCID, String bstrWebTemplate, String bstrOwnerLogin, String bstrOwnerUserKey, String bstrOwnerName, String bstrOwnerEmail, String bstrSecondaryContactLogin, String bstrSecondaryContactUserKey, String bstrSecondaryContactName, String bstrSecondaryContactEmail, Boolean bADAccountMode, Boolean bHostHeaderIsSiteName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(SPContentDataba... 72ju High ...se database, String siteUrl, String title, String description, UInt32 nLCID, String webTemplate, String ownerLogin, String ownerName, String ownerEmail, String secondaryContactLogin, String secondaryContactName, String secondaryContactEmail, String quotaTemplate, String sscRootWebUrl, Boolean useHostHeaderAsSiteName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPSiteCollection.Add(String siteUrl, String title, String description, UInt32 nLCID, String webTemplate, String ownerLogin, String ownerName, String ownerEmail, String secondaryContactLogin, String secondaryContactName, String secondaryContactEmail, Boolean useHostHeaderAsSiteName) at Microsoft.SharePoint.StsAdmin.SPCreateSite.Run(StringDictionary keyValues) at Microsoft.SharePoint.StsAdmin.SPStsAdmin.RunOperation(SPGlobalAdmi... 72ju High ...n globalAdmin, String strOperation, StringDictionary keyValues, SPParamCollection pars) 8wsw High Now terminating ULS (STSADM.EXE, onetnative.dll) * Seems to me that the trouble started with this - Unable to get domain DNS or forest DNS for domain sharepointsvc.com. ErrorCode=1212 Network connection to the sharepointsvc.com domain seems to be fine. C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o getproperty -pn ADAccountDomain <Property Exist="Yes" Value="sharepointsvc.com" /> C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>stsadm -o getproperty -pn ADAccountOU <Property Exist="Yes" Value="sharepoint_ou" /> C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN>nslookup sharepointsvc.com Server: vm-winsrvr2003.sharepointsvc.com Address: 192.168.0.5 Name: sharepointsvc.com Addresses: 192.168.0.21, 192.168.0.5 Is there any way of checking the domain connection from within Sharepoint (like using some getproperty of the STSADM tool) Does anyone have any clue about this ? (any pointers would be very helpful) Thanks.

    Read the article

  • Opening of the spWeb.ContentTypes gives SOAP Exception 0x80004004

    - by mdi
    Hi everybody! I have the code which going through the sharepoint contenttypes and changes needed field display names. On my local server everything works fine, but on the client side it gives me an error: Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: Operation aborted (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004004 (E_ABORT)) --- System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x80004004): Operation aborted (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80004004 (E_ABORT)) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequestInternalClass.OpenWebInternal(String bstrUrl, Guid& pguidID, String& pbstrRequestAccessEmail, UInt32& pwebVersion, String& pbstrServerRelativeUrl, UInt32& pnLanguage, UInt32& pnLocale, String& pbstrDefaultTheme, String& pbstrDefaultThemeCSSUrl, String& pbstrAlternateCSSUrl, String& pbstrCustomizedCssFileList, String& pbstrCustomJSUrl, String& pbstrAlternateHeaderUrl, String& pbstrMasterUrl, String& pbstrCustomMasterUrl, String& pbstrSiteLogoUrl, String& pbstrSiteLogoDescription, Object& pvarUser, Boolean& pvarIsAuditor, Int32& plSiteFlags) at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.OpenWebInternal(String bstrUrl, Guid& pguidID, String& pbstrRequestAccessEmail, UInt32& pwebVersion, String& pbstrServerRelativeUrl, UInt32& pnLanguage, UInt32& pnLocale, String& pbstrDefaultTheme, String& pbstrDefaultThemeCSSUrl, String& pbstrAlternateCSSUrl, String& pbstrCustomizedCssFileList, String& pbstrCustomJSUrl, String& pbstrAlternateHeaderUrl, String& pbstrMasterUrl, String& pbstrCustomMasterUrl, String& pbstrSiteLogoUrl, String& pbstrSiteLogoDescription, Object& pvarUser, Boolean& pvarIsAuditor, Int32& plSiteFlags) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at Microsoft.SharePoint.Library.SPRequest.OpenWebInternal(String bstrUrl, Guid& pguidID, String& pbstrRequestAccessEmail, UInt32& pwebVersion, String& pbstrServerRelativeUrl, UInt32& pnLanguage, UInt32& pnLocale, String& pbstrDefaultTheme, String& pbstrDefaultThemeCSSUrl, String& pbstrAlternateCSSUrl, String& pbstrCustomizedCssFileList, String& pbstrCustomJSUrl, String& pbstrAlternateHeaderUrl, String& pbstrMasterUrl, String& pbstrCustomMasterUrl, String& pbstrSiteLogoUrl, String& pbstrSiteLogoDescription, Object& pvarUser, Boolean& pvarIsAuditor, Int32& plSiteFlags) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb.InitWebPublic() at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb.get_ServerRelativeUrl() at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb.get_Url() at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContentTypeCollection.FetchCollection() at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPContentTypeCollection..ctor(SPWeb web, Boolean bAll) at Microsoft.SharePoint.SPWeb.get_ContentTypes() the code is below: SPWebApplication webApp = SPWebService.ContentService.WebApplications[someGuid]; foreach (SPSite spSite in webApp.Sites) { using (SPWeb spWeb = spSite.RootWeb) { try { foreach (SPContentType spContentType in spWeb.ContentTypes) { ... }}}.. Could anybody provide me with workaround or with the reason of the problem.

    Read the article

  • Replacement Text Syntax for JavaScript’s String.replace()

    - by Jan Goyvaerts
    A RegexBuddy user told me that he couldn’t easily find a detailed explanation of the replacement text syntax supported by the String.replace() function in JavaScript. I had to admin that my own web page about JavaScript’s regular expression support was also lacking. I’ve now added a new Replacement Syntax section that has all the details. I’ll summarize it here: $1: Text matched by the first capturing group or the literal text $1 if the regex has no capturing groups. $99: Text matched by the 99th capturing group if the regex has 99 or more groups. Text matched by the 9th capturing group followed by a literal 9 if the regex has 9 or more but less than 99 groups. The literal text $99 if the regex has fewer than 9 groups. $+: Text matched by the highest-numbered capturing group. Replaced with nothing if the highest-numbered group didn’t participate in the match. $&: Text matched by the entire regex. You cannot use $0 for this. $` (backtick): Text to the left of the regex match. $' (single quote): Text to the right of the regex match. $_: The entire subject string.

    Read the article

  • Amazon Kindle Fire User Agent String

    - by Gopinath
    Today I was searching for Amazon Kindle Fire user agent string so that I can trick websites as if I’m browsing using Kindle Fire. To my surprise I found the following two variants of user agents listed on blogs but not sure which one is right or if Kindle Fire generating two types of User Agent strings. The first one is given by the prominent blogger and WSJ tech columnist Amit Agarwal and I vote for him as he is a highly reputed person. Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.3.4; en-us; Kindle Fire Build/GINGERBREAD) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1 The second variant is found on this website and I’m not sure about the authority of the blogger. Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10_6_3; en-us; Silk/1.1.0-80) AppleWebKit/533.16 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0 Safari/533.16 Silk-Accelerated=true This article titled,Amazon Kindle Fire User Agent String, was originally published at Tech Dreams. Grab our rss feed or fan us on Facebook to get updates from us.

    Read the article

  • String manipulation functions in SQL Server 2000 / 2005

    - by Vipin
    SQL Server provides a range of string manipulation functions. I was aware of most of those in back of the mind, but when I needed to use one, I had to dig it out either from SQL server help file or from google. So, I thought I will list some of the functions which performs some common operations in SQL server. Hope it will be helpful to you all. Len (' String_Expression' ) - returns the length of input String_Expression. Example - Select Len('Vipin') Output - 5 Left ( 'String_Expression', int_characters ) - returns int_characters characters from the left of the String_Expression.     Example - Select Left('Vipin',3), Right('Vipin',3) Output -  Vip,  Pin  LTrim ( 'String_Expression' ) - removes spaces from left of the input 'String_Expression'  RTrim ( 'String_Expression' ) - removes spaces from right of the input 'String_Expression' Note - To removes spaces from both ends of the string_expression use Ltrim and RTrim in conjunction Example - Select LTrim(' Vipin '), RTrim(' Vipin ') , LTrim ( RTrim(' Vipin ')) Output - 'Vipin ' , ' Vipin' , 'Vipin' (Single quote marks ' ' are not part of the SQL output, it's just been included to demonstrate the presence of space at the end of string.) Substring ( 'String_Expression' , int_start , int_length ) - this function returns the part of string_expression. Right ( 'String_Expression', int_characters ) - returns int_characters characters from the right of the String_Expression.

    Read the article

  • Find last of match string automatically

    - by jowan
    I want to make id for entries as long as 7 digits.. while first entry is created, it will get id is 0000001 And my problem is i want to get id and add to 1 every time new entry is created.. I have a bunch of code and still confuse to implement it. $str_rep = "0000123"; $str_rep2 = "0005123"; // My character string can be like this $str_rep3 = "0009123"; // My character string can be like this $match_number= array(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9); // I create array to do it automatically but it was not work. // I do it manually $get_str = strstr($str_rep, "1"); $get_str = strstr($str_rep2, "5"); $get_str = strstr($str_rep3, "9"); // Result echo $get_str . "<br>"; echo $get_str2 . "<br>"; echo $get_str3 . "<br>"; Thanks in advance

    Read the article

  • Using "gedit", a string of errors occours

    - by Kumuluzz
    I'm trying to program some small programs in C in terminal and gedit. But everytime i use gedit then a string of errors occours. When i open a new file nothing happens. But in the exact same moment i save the file, then a string of erros coour. Also if i open an already existing file (not a new one), then when the gedit window opens the old file all the lines of errors are writen. In both cases in less than a second and nothing more happens. An example to the error: "error: line 35272: 0 is wrong flag id". They are all similar to this, except the line number is different. There are like 50 of them. I'm running 11.10, just installed it a couple of days again (yes, i'm a newbie) and i've updated all the files recently. I've tried reinstalling gedit via: sudo apt-get --reinstall install gedit It kinda made it worse, now a lot of the lines are shown twice. So now it goes (this is a copy of the first lines of error): error: line 6787: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 10034: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 10034: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 11351: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 11351: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 11849: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 11849: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 15609: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 15609: 0 is wrong flag id error: line 19814: 0 is wrong flag id

    Read the article

  • How to implement string matching based on a pattern

    - by Vincent Rischmann
    I was asked to build a tool that can identify if a string match a pattern. Example: {1:20} stuff t(x) {a,b,c} would match: 1 stuff tx a 20 stuff t c It is a sort of regex but with a different syntax Parentheses indicate an optional value {1:20} is a interval; I will have to check if the token is a number and if it is between 1 and 20 {a,b,c} is just an enumeration; it can be either a or b or c Right now I implemented this with a regex, and the interval stuff was a pain to do. On my own time I tried implementing some kind of matcher by hand, but it turns out it's not that easy to do. By experimenting I ended up with a function that generates a state table from the pattern and a state machine. It worked well until I tried to implement the optional value, and I got stuck and how to generate the state table. After that I searched how I could do this, and that led me to stuff like LL parser, LALR parser, recursive-descent parser, context-free grammars, etc. I never studied any of this so it's hard to know what is relevant here, but I think this is what I need: A grammar A parser which generates states from the grammar and a pattern A state machine to see if a string match the states So my first question is: Is this right ? And second question, what do you recommend I read/study to be able to implement this ?

    Read the article

  • High-level strategy for distinguishing a regular string from invalid JSON (ie. JSON-like string detection)

    - by Jonline
    Disclaimer On Absence of Code: I have no code to post because I haven't started writing; was looking for more theoretical guidance as I doubt I'll have trouble coding it but am pretty befuddled on what approach(es) would yield best results. I'm not seeking any code, either, though; just direction. Dilemma I'm toying with adding a "magic method"-style feature to a UI I'm building for a client, and it would require intelligently detecting whether or not a string was meant to be JSON as against a simple string. I had considered these general ideas: Look for a sort of arbitrarily-determined acceptable ratio of the frequency of JSON-like syntax (ie. regex to find strings separated by colons; look for colons between curly-braces, etc.) to the number of quote-encapsulated strings + nulls, bools and ints/floats. But the smaller the data set, the more fickle this would get look for key identifiers like opening and closing curly braces... not sure if there even are more easy identifiers, and this doesn't appeal anyway because it's so prescriptive about the kinds of mistakes it could find try incrementally parsing chunks, as those between curly braces, and seeing what proportion of these fractional statements turn out to be valid JSON; this seems like it would suffer less than (1) from smaller datasets, but would probably be much more processing-intensive, and very susceptible to a missing or inverted brace Just curious if the computational folks or algorithm pros out there had any approaches in mind that my semantics-oriented brain might have missed. PS: It occurs to me that natural language processing, about which I am totally ignorant, might be a cool approach; but, if NLP is a good strategy here, it sort of doesn't matter because I have zero experience with it and don't have time to learn & then implement/ this feature isn't worth it to the client.

    Read the article

  • Best way to manipulate and compare strings

    - by vtortola
    I'm developing a REST service, so a request could be something like this: /Data/Main/Table=Customers/ I need to get the segments one by one, and for each segment I will decide wich object I'm going to use, after I'll pass to that object the rest of the query so it can decide what to do next. Basically, the REST query is a path on a tree :P This imply lots String operations (depending on the query complexity), but StringBuilder is useful just for concatenations and remove, you cannot perform a search with IndexOf or similar. I've developed this class that fulfill my requirement, but the problem is that is manipulating Strings, so every time I get one segment ... I'll create extra Strings because String is an inmutable data type: public class RESTQueryParser { String _query; public RESTQueryParser(String query) { _query = query; } public String GetNext() { String result = String.Empty; Int32 startPosition = _query.StartsWith("/", StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) ? 1 : 0; Int32 i = _query.IndexOf("/", startPosition, StringComparison.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase) - 1; if (!String.IsNullOrEmpty(_query)) { if (i < 0) { result = _query.Substring(startPosition, _query.Length - 1); _query = String.Empty; } else { result = _query.Substring(startPosition, i); _query = _query.Remove(0, i + 1); } } return result; } } The server should support a lot of calls, and the queries could be huge, so this is gonna be a very repetitive task. I don't really know how big is the impact on the memory and the performance, I've just readed about it in some books. Should I implement a class that manage a Char[] instead Strings and implement the methods that I want? Or should be ok with this one? Regular expressions maybe?

    Read the article

  • android: error on SQLiteDatabase rawQuery (fetching data)

    - by Jin
    So I have a SQliteDatabase mDb. It only has one column, and its data are Strings for previously saved inputs. I'm trying to populate all the data from mDb into a String[] for AutoCompleteTextView (so that the autocomplete is based on previous inputs), and here's my code to get all of the String. public String[] fetchAllSearch() { ArrayList<String> allSearch = new ArrayList<String>(); Cursor c = mDb.rawQuery("select * from " + DATABASE_TABLE, null); c.moveToFirst(); if (c.getCount() > 0) { do { allSearch.add(c.getString(c.getColumnIndex("KEY"))); } while (c.moveToNext()); } String[] foo = (String[]) allSearch.toArray(); if (foo == null) { foo = new String[] {""}; } return foo; } my CREATE_TABLE command is private static final String DATABASE_CREATE = "create table " + DATABASE_TABLE; .. public void onCreate(SQLiteDatabase db) { db.execSQL(DATABASE_CREATE); } But for some reason the line mDb.rawQuery(...) is giving me "no such table found" exception, and for the life of me I can't figure out why. Any pointers?

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER – How to Recover SQL Database Data Deleted by Accident

    - by Pinal Dave
    In Repair a SQL Server database using a transaction log explorer, I showed how to use ApexSQL Log, a SQL Server transaction log viewer, to recover a SQL Server database after a disaster. In this blog, I’ll show you how to use another SQL Server disaster recovery tool from ApexSQL in a situation when data is accidentally deleted. You can download ApexSQL Recover here, install, and play along. With a good SQL Server disaster recovery strategy, data recovery is not a problem. You have a reliable full database backup with valid data, a full database backup and subsequent differential database backups, or a full database backup and a chain of transaction log backups. But not all situations are ideal. Here we’ll address some sub-optimal scenarios, where you can still successfully recover data. If you have only a full database backup This is the least optimal SQL Server disaster recovery strategy, as it doesn’t ensure minimal data loss. For example, data was deleted on Wednesday. Your last full database backup was created on Sunday, three days before the records were deleted. By using the full database backup created on Sunday, you will be able to recover SQL database records that existed in the table on Sunday. If there were any records inserted into the table on Monday or Tuesday, they will be lost forever. The same goes for records modified in this period. This method will not bring back modified records, only the old records that existed on Sunday. If you restore this full database backup, all your changes (intentional and accidental) will be lost and the database will be reverted to the state it had on Sunday. What you have to do is compare the records that were in the table on Sunday to the records on Wednesday, create a synchronization script, and execute it against the Wednesday database. If you have a full database backup followed by differential database backups Let’s say the situation is the same as in the example above, only you create a differential database backup every night. Use the full database backup created on Sunday, and the last differential database backup (created on Tuesday). In this scenario, you will lose only the data inserted and updated after the differential backup created on Tuesday. If you have a full database backup and a chain of transaction log backups This is the SQL Server disaster recovery strategy that provides minimal data loss. With a full chain of transaction logs, you can recover the SQL database to an exact point in time. To provide optimal results, you have to know exactly when the records were deleted, because restoring to a later point will not bring back the records. This method requires restoring the full database backup first. If you have any differential log backup created after the last full database backup, restore the most recent one. Then, restore transaction log backups, one by one, it the order they were created starting with the first created after the restored differential database backup. Now, the table will be in the state before the records were deleted. You have to identify the deleted records, script them and run the script against the original database. Although this method is reliable, it is time-consuming and requires a lot of space on disk. How to easily recover deleted records? The following solution enables you to recover SQL database records even if you have no full or differential database backups and no transaction log backups. To understand how ApexSQL Recover works, I’ll explain what happens when table data is deleted. Table data is stored in data pages. When you delete table records, they are not immediately deleted from the data pages, but marked to be overwritten by new records. Such records are not shown as existing anymore, but ApexSQL Recover can read them and create undo script for them. How long will deleted records stay in the MDF file? It depends on many factors, as time passes it’s less likely that the records will not be overwritten. The more transactions occur after the deletion, the more chances the records will be overwritten and permanently lost. Therefore, it’s recommended to create a copy of the database MDF and LDF files immediately (if you cannot take your database offline until the issue is solved) and run ApexSQL Recover on them. Note that a full database backup will not help here, as the records marked for overwriting are not included in the backup. First, I’ll delete some records from the Person.EmailAddress table in the AdventureWorks database.   I can delete these records in SQL Server Management Studio, or execute a script such as DELETE FROM Person.EmailAddress WHERE BusinessEntityID BETWEEN 70 AND 80 Then, I’ll start ApexSQL Recover and select From DELETE operation in the Recovery tab.   In the Select the database to recover step, first select the SQL Server instance. If it’s not shown in the drop-down list, click the Server icon right to the Server drop-down list and browse for the SQL Server instance, or type the instance name manually. Specify the authentication type and select the database in the Database drop-down list.   In the next step, you’re prompted to add additional data sources. As this can be a tricky step, especially for new users, ApexSQL Recover offers help via the Help me decide option.   The Help me decide option guides you through a series of questions about the database transaction log and advises what files to add. If you know that you have no transaction log backups or detached transaction logs, or the online transaction log file has been truncated after the data was deleted, select No additional transaction logs are available. If you know that you have transaction log backups that contain the delete transactions you want to recover, click Add transaction logs. The online transaction log is listed and selected automatically.   Click Add if to add transaction log backups. It would be best if you have a full transaction log chain, as explained above. The next step for this option is to specify the time range.   Selecting a small time range for the time of deletion will create the recovery script just for the accidentally deleted records. A wide time range might script the records deleted on purpose, and you don’t want that. If needed, you can check the script generated and manually remove such records. After that, for all data sources options, the next step is to select the tables. Be careful here, if you deleted some data from other tables on purpose, and don’t want to recover them, don’t select all tables, as ApexSQL Recover will create the INSERT script for them too.   The next step offers two options: to create a recovery script that will insert the deleted records back into the Person.EmailAddress table, or to create a new database, create the Person.EmailAddress table in it, and insert the deleted records. I’ll select the first one.   The recovery process is completed and 11 records are found and scripted, as expected.   To see the script, click View script. ApexSQL Recover has its own script editor, where you can review, modify, and execute the recovery script. The insert into statements look like: INSERT INTO Person.EmailAddress( BusinessEntityID, EmailAddressID, EmailAddress, rowguid, ModifiedDate) VALUES( 70, 70, N'[email protected]' COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS, 'd62c5b4e-c91f-403f-b630-7b7e0fda70ce', '20030109 00:00:00.000' ); To execute the script, click Execute in the menu.   If you want to check whether the records are really back, execute SELECT * FROM Person.EmailAddress WHERE BusinessEntityID BETWEEN 70 AND 80 As shown, ApexSQL Recover recovers SQL database data after accidental deletes even without the database backup that contains the deleted data and relevant transaction log backups. ApexSQL Recover reads the deleted data from the database data file, so this method can be used even for databases in the Simple recovery model. Besides recovering SQL database records from a DELETE statement, ApexSQL Recover can help when the records are lost due to a DROP TABLE, or TRUNCATE statement, as well as repair a corrupted MDF file that cannot be attached to as SQL Server instance. You can find more information about how to recover SQL database lost data and repair a SQL Server database on ApexSQL Solution center. There are solutions for various situations when data needs to be recovered. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Backup and Restore, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

    Read the article

  • SQLAuthority News – Pluralsight Course Review – Practices for Software Startups – Part 1 of 2

    - by pinaldave
    This is first part of the two part series of Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. The course is written by Stephen Forte (Blog | Twitter). Stephen Forte is the Chief Strategy Officer of the venture backed company, Telerik, a leading vendor of developer and team productivity tools. Stephen is also a Certified Scrum Master, Certified Scrum Professional, PMP, and also speaks regularly at industry conferences around the world. He has written several books on application and database development.  Stephen is also a board member of the Scrum Alliance. Startups – Everybodies Dream Start-up companies are an important topic right now – everyone wants to start their own business.  It is also important to remember that all companies were a start up at one point – from your corner store to the giants like Microsoft and Apple.  Research proves that not every start-up succeeds, in fact, most will fail before their first year.  There are many reasons for this, and this could be due to the fact that there are many stages to a start-up company, and stumbling at any of these stages can lead to failure.  It is important to understand what makes a start-up company succeed at all its hurdles to become successful.  It is even important to define success.  For most start-ups this would mean becoming their own independently functioning company or to be bought out for a hefty profit by a larger company.  The idea of making a hefty profit by living your dream is extremely important, and you can even think of start-ups as the new craze.  That’s why studying them is so important – they are very popular, but things have changed a lot since their inception. Starting the Startups Beginning a start-up company used to be difficult, but now facilities and information is widely available, and it is much easier.  But that means it is much easier to fail, also.  Previously to start your own company, everything was planned and organized, resources were ensured and backed up before beginning; even the idea of starting your own business was a big thing.  Now anybody can do it, and the steps are simple and outlines everywhere – you can get online software and easily outsource , cloud source, or crowdsource a lot of your material.  But without the type of planning previously required, things can often go badly. New Products – New Ideas – New World There are so many fantastic new products, but they don’t reach success all the time.  I find start-up companies very interesting, and whenever I meet someone who is interested in the subject or already starting their own company, I always ask what they are doing, their plans, goals, market, etc.  I am sorry to say that in most cases, they cannot answer my questions.  It is true that many fantastic ideas fail because of bad decisions.  These bad decisions were not made intentionally, but people were simply unaware of what they should be doing.  This will always lead to failure.  But I am happy to say that all these issues can be gone because Pluralsight is now offering a course all about start-ups by Stephen Forte.  Stephen is a start up leader.  He has successfully started many companies and most are still going strong, or have gone on to even bigger and better things. Beginning Course on Startup I have always thought start-ups are a fascinating subject, and decided to take his course, but it is three hours long.  This would be hard to fit into my busy work day all at once, so I decided to do half of his course before my daughter wakes up, and the other half after she goes to sleep.  The course is divided into six modules, so this would be easy to do.  I began the first chapter early in the morning, at 5 am.  Stephen jumped right into the middle of the subject in the very first module – designing your business plan.  The first question you will have to answer to yourself, to others, and to investors is: What is your product and when will we be able to see it?  So a very important concept is a “minimal viable product.”  This means setting goals for yourself and your product.  We all have large dreams, but your minimal viable product doesn’t have to be your final vision at the very first.  For example: Apple is a giant company, but it is still evolving.  Steve Jobs didn’t envision the iPhone 6 at the very beginning.  He had to start at the first iPhone and do his market research, and the idea evolved into the technology you see now.  So for yourself, you should decide a beginning and stop point.  Do your market research.  Determine who you want to reach, what audience you want for your product.  You can have a great idea that simply will not work in the market, do need, bottlenecks, lack of resources, or competition.  There is a lot of research that needs to be done before you even write a business plan, and Stephen covers it in the very first chapter. The Team – Unique Key to Success After jumping right into the subject in the very first module, I wondered what Stephen could have in store for me for the rest of the course.  Chapter number two is building a team.  Having a team is important regardless of what your startup is.  You can be a true visionary with endless ideas and energy, but one person can still not do everything.  It is important to decide from the very beginning if you will have cofounders, team leaders, and how many employees you’ll need.  Even more important, you’ll need to decide what kind of team you want – what personalities, skills, and type of energy you want each of your employees to bring.  Do you want to have an A+ team with a B- idea, or do you have a B- idea that needs an A+ team to sell it?  Stephen asks all the hard questions!  I was especially impressed by his insight on developing.  You have to decide if you need developers, how many, and what their skills should be. I found this insight extremely useful for everyday usage, not just for start-up companies.  I would apply this kind of information in management at any position.  An amazing team will build an amazing product – and that doesn’t matter if you’re a start-up company or a small team working for a much larger business. Customer Development – The Ultimate Obective Chapter three was about customer development. According to Stephen, there are four different steps to develop a customer base.  The first question to ask yourself is if you are envisioning a large customer base buying a few products each, or a small, dedicated base that buys a lot of your product – quantity vs. Quality.  He also discusses how to earn, retain, and get more customers.  He also says that each customer should be placed in a different role – some will be like investors, who regularly spend with you and invest their money in your business.  It is then your job to take that investment and turn it into a better product in the future.  You need to deal with their money properly – think of it is as theirs as investors, not yours as profit.  At the end of this module I felt that only Stephen could provide this kind of insight, and then he listed all the resources he took his information from.  I have never seen a group of people so passionate about their customers. It was indeed a long day for me. In tomorrow’s part 2 we will discuss rest of the three module and also will see a quick video of the Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • SQLAuthority News – Memories at Anniversary of SQL Wait Stats Book

    - by pinaldave
    SQL Wait Stats About a year ago, I had very proud moment. I had published my second book SQL Server Wait Stats with me as a primary author. It has been a long journey since then. The book got great response and it was widely accepted in the community. It was first of its kind of book written specifically on Wait Stats and Performance. The book was based on my earlier month long series written on the same subject SQL Server Wait Stats. Today, on the anniversary of the book, lots of things come to my mind let me share a few here. Idea behind Blog Series A very common question I often receive is why I wrote a 30 day series on Wait Stats. There were two reasons for it. 1) I have been working with SQL Server for a long time and have troubleshoot more than hundreds of SQL Server which are related to performance tuning. It was a great experience and it taught me a lot of new things. I always documented my experience. After a while I found that I was able to completely rely on my own notes when I was troubleshooting any servers. It is right then I decided to document my experience for the community. 2) While working with wait stats there were a few things, which I thought I knew it well as they were working. However, there was always a fear in the back of mind that what happens if what I believed was incorrect and I was on the wrong path all the time. There was only one way to get it validated. Put it out in front community with my understanding and request further help to improve my understanding. It worked, it worked beautifully. I received plenty of conversations, emails and comments. I refined my content based on various conversations and make it more relevant and near accurate. I guess above two are the major reasons for beginning my journey on writing Wait Stats blog series. Idea behind Book After writing a blog series there was a good amount of request I keep on receiving that I should convert it to eBook or proper book as reading blog posts is great but it goes not give a comprehensive understanding of the subject. The very common feedback from users who were beginning the subject that they will prefer to read it in a structured method. After hearing the feedback for more than 4 months, I decided to write a book based on the blog posts. When I envisioned book, I wanted to make sure this book addresses the wait stats concepts from the fundamentals and fill the gaps of blogs I wrote earlier. Rick Morelan and Joes 2 Pros Team I must acknowledge my co-author Rick Morelan for his unconditional support in writing this book. I had already authored one book before I published this book. The experience to write the book was out of the world. Writing blog posts are much much easier than writing books. The efforts it takes to write a book is 100 times more even though the content is ready. I could have not done it myself if there was not tremendous support of my co-author and editor’s team. We spend days and days researching and discussing various concepts covered in the book. When we were in doubt we reached out to experts as well did a practical reproduction of the scenarios to validate the concepts and claims. After continuous 3 months of hard work we were able to get this book out in the community. September 1st – the lucky day Well, we had to select any day to publish the books. When book was completed in August last week we felt very glad. We all had worked hard and having a sample draft book in hand was feeling like having a newborn baby in our hand. Every time my books are published I feel the same joy which I had when my daughter was born. The feeling of holding a new book in hand is the (almost) same feeling as holding newborn baby. I am excited. For me September 1st has been the luckiest day in mind life. My daughter Shaivi was born on September 1st. Since then every September first has been excellent day and have taken me to the next step in life. I believe anything and everything I do on September 1st it is turning out to be successful and blessed. Rick and I had finished a book in the last week of August. We sent it to the publisher (printer) and asked him to take the book live as soon as possible. We did not decide on any date as we wanted the book to get out as fast as it can. Interesting enough, the publisher/printer selected September 1st for publishing the book. He published the book on 1st September and I knew it at the same time that this book will go next level. Book Model – The Most Beautiful Girl We were done with book. We had no budget left for marketing. Rick and I had a long conversation regarding how to spread the words for the book so it can reach to many people. While we were talking about marketing Rick come up with the idea that we should hire a most beautiful girl around who acknowledge our book and genuinely care for book. It was a difficult task and Rick asked me to find a more beautiful girl. I am a father and the most beautiful girl for me my daughter. This was not a difficult task for me. Rick had given me task to find the most beautiful girl and I just could not think of anyone else than my own daughter. I still do not know what Rick thought about this idea but I had already made up my mind. You can see the detailed blog post here. The Fun Experiments Book Signing Event We had lots of fun moments along this book. We have given away more books to people for free than we have sold them actually. We had done book signing events, contests, and just plain give away when we found people can be benefited from this book. There was never an intention to make money and get rich. We just wanted that more and more people know about this new concept and learn from it. Today when I look back to the earnings there is nothing much we have earned if you talk about dollars. However the best reward which we have received is the satisfaction and love of community. The amount of emails, conversations we have so far received for this book is over thousands. We had fun writing this book, it was indeed a very satisfying journey. I have earned lots of friends while learning and exploring. Availability The book is one year old but still very relevant when it is about performance tuning. It is available at various online book stores. If you have read the book, do let me know what you think of it. Amazon | Kindle | Flipkart | Indiaplaza Reference:  Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: About Me, Joes 2 Pros, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority, SQLAuthority Book Review, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • SQLAuthority Book Review – DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA

    - by pinaldave
    DBA Survivor: Become a Rock Star DBA – Thomas LaRock Link to Amazon Link to Flipkart First of all, I thank all my readers when I wrote that I could not get this book in any local book stores, because they offered me to send a copy of this good book. A very special mention goes to Sripada and Jayesh for they gave so much effort in finding my home address and sending me the hard copy. Before, I did not have the copy of the book, but now I have two of it already! It surprises me how my readers were able to find my home address, which I have not publicly shared. Quick Review: This is indeed a one easy-to-read and fun book. We all work day and night with technology yet we should not forget to show our love and care for our family at home. For our souls that starve for peace and guidance, this one book is the “it” book for all the technology enthusiasts. Though this book was specifically written for DBAs, the reach is not limited to DBAs only because the lessons incorporated in it actually applies to all. This is one of the most motivating technical books I have read. Detailed Review: Let us go over a few questions first: Who wants to be as famous as rockstars in the field of Database Administration? How can one learn what it takes to become a top notch software developer? If you are a beginner in your field, how will you go to next level? Your boss may be very kind or like Dilbert’s Boss, what will you do? How do you keep growing when Eco-system around you does not support you? You are almost at top but there is someone else at the TOP, what do you do and how do you avoid office politics? As a database developer what should be your basic responsibility? and many more… I was able to completely read book in one sitting and I loved it. Before I continue with my opinion, I want to echo the opinion of Kevin Kline who has written the Forward of the book. He has truly suggested that “You hold in your hands a collection of insights and wisdom on the topic of database administration gained through many years of hard-won experience, long nights of study, and direct mentorship under some of the industry’s most talented database professionals and information technology (IT) experts.” Today, IT field is getting bigger and better, while talking about terabytes of the database becomes “more” normal every single day. The gods and demigods of database professionals are taking care of these large scale databases and are carefully maintaining them. In this world, there are only a few beginnings on the first step. There are many experts in different technology fields who are asked to address the issues with databases. There is YOU and ME, who is just new to this work. So we ask ourselves WHERE to begin and HOW to begin. We adore and follow the religion of our rockstars, but oftentimes we really have no idea about their background and their struggles. Every rockstar has his success story which needs to be digested before learning his tricks and tips. This book starts with the same note and teaches the two most important lessons for anybody who wants to be a DBA Rockstar –  to focus on their single goal of learning and to excel the technology. The story starts with three simple guidelines – Get Prepared, Get Trained, Get Certified. Once a person learns the skills, and then, it would be about time that he needs to enrich or to improve those skills you have learned. I am sure that the right opportunity will come finding themselves and they will not have to go run behind it. However, the real challenge for any person is the first day or first week. A new employee, no matter how much experienced he is, sometimes has no clue about what should one do at new job. Chapter 2 and chapter 3 precisely talk about what one should do as soon as the new job begins. It is also written with keeping the fact in focus that each job can be very much different but there are few infrastructure setups and programming concepts are the same. Learning basics of database was really interesting. I like to focus on the roots of any technology. It is important to understand the structure of the database before suggesting what indexes needs to be created, the same way this book covers the most essential knowledge one must learn by most database developers. I think the title of the fourth chapter is my favorite sentence in this book. I can see that I will be saying this again and again in the future – “A Development Server Is a Production Server to a Developer“. I have worked in the software industry for almost 8 years now and I have seen so many developers sitting on their chairs and waiting for instructions from their lead about how to improve the code or what to do the next. When I talk to them, I suggest that the experiment with their server and try various techniques. I think they all should understand that for them, a development server is their production server and needs to pay proper attention to the code from the beginning. There should be NO any inappropriate code from the beginning. One has to fully focus and give their best, if they are not sure they should ask but should do something and stay active. Chapter 5 and 6 talks about two essential skills for any developer and database administration – what are the ethics of developers when they are working with production server and how to support software which is running on the production server. I have met many people who know the theory by heart but when put in front of keyboard they do not know where to start. The first thing they do opening the browser and searching online, instead of opening SQL Server Management Studio. This can very well happen to anybody who is experienced as well. Chapter 5 and 6 addresses that situation as well includes the handy scripts which can solve almost all the basic trouble shooting issues. “Where’s the Buffet?” By far, this is the best chapter in this book. If you have ever met me, you would know that I love food. I think after reading this chapter, I felt Thomas has written this just keeping me in mind. I think there will be many other people who feel the same way, too. Even my wife who read this chapter thought this was specifically written for me. I will not talk any more about this chapter as this is one must read chapter. And of course this is about real ‘FOOD‘. I am an SQL Server Trainer and Consultant and I totally agree with the point made in the chapter 8 of this book. Yes, it says here that what is necessary to train employees and people. Millions of dollars worth the labor is continuously done in the world which has faults and incorrect. Once something goes wrong, very expensive consultant comes in and fixes the problem. This whole cycle which can be stopped and improved if proper training is done. There is plenty of free trainings available as well, if one cannot afford paid training. “Connect. Learn. Share” – I think this is a great summary and bird’s eye view of this book. Networking is the key. Everything which is discussed in this book can be taken to next level if one properly uses this tips and continuously grow with it. Connecting with others, helping learn each other and building the good knowledge sharing environment should be the goal of everyone. Before I end the review I want to share a real experience. I have personally met one DBA who has worked in a single department in a company for so long that when he was put in a different department in his company due to closing that department, he could not adjust and quit the job despite the same people and company around him. Adjusting in the new environment gets much tougher as one person gets more and more experienced. This book precisely addresses the same issue along with their solutions. I just cannot stop comparing the book with my personal journey. I found so many things which are coincidently in the book is written as how we developer and DBA think. I must express special thanks to Thomas for taking time in his personal life and write this book for us. This book is indeed a book for everybody who wants to grow healthy in the tough and competitive environment. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, SQLAuthority Book Review, SQLAuthority News, SQLServer, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • SQLAuthority News – Pluralsight Course Review – Practices for Software Startups – Part 2 of 2

    - by pinaldave
    This is the second part of the two part series of Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Please read the first part of this series over here. The course is written by Stephen Forte (Blog | Twitter). Stephen Forte is the Chief Strategy Officer of the venture backed company, Telerik. Personal Learning Schedule After these three sessions it was 6:30 am and time to do my own blog.  But for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about the course, and wanted to go back and finish.  I was wishing that I had woken up at 3 am so I could finish all at one go.  All day long I was digesting what I had learned.  At 10 pm, after my daughter had gone to bed, I sighed on again.  I was not disappointed by the long wait.  As I mentioned before, Stephen has started four to six companies, and all of them are very successful today. Here is the video I promised yesterday – it discusses the importance of Right Sizing Your Startup. The Heartbeat of Startup – Technology Stephen has combined all technology knowledge into one 30 minute session.  He discussed  how to start your project, how to deal with opinions, and how to deal with multiple ideas – every start up has multiple directions it can go. He spent a lot of time emphasized deciding which direction to go and how to decide which will be the best for you.  He called it a continuous development cycle. One of the biggest hazards for a start-up company is one person deciding the direction the company will go, until down the road another team member announces that there is a glitch in their part of the work and that everyone will have to start over.  Even though a team of two or five people can move quickly, often the decision has gone too long and cannot be easily fixed.   Stephen used an example from his own life:  he was biased for one type of technology, and his teammate for another.  In the end they opted for his teammate’s  choice , and in the end it was a good decision, even though he was unfamiliar with that particular program.  He argues that technology should not be a barrier to progress, that you cannot rely on your experience only.  This really spoke to me because I am a big fan of SQL, but I know there is more out there, and I should be more open to it.  I give my thanks to Stephen, I learned something in this module besides startups. Money, Success and Epic Win! The longest, but most interesting, the module was funding your start-up.  You need to fund the start-up right at the very beginning, if not done right you will run into trouble.  The good news is that a few years ago start-ups required a lot more money – think millions of dollars – but now start-ups can get off the ground for thousands.  Stephen used an example of a company that years ago would have needed a million dollars, but today could be started for $600.  It is true that things have changed, but you still need money.  For $600 you can start small and add dynamically, as needed.  But the truth is that if you have $600, $6000, or $6 million, it will be spent.  Don’t think of it as trying to save money, think of it as investing in your future.   You will need money, and you will need to (quickly) decide what you do with the money: shares, stakeholders, investing in a team, hiring a CEO.  This is so important because once you have money and start the company, the company IS your money.  It is your biggest currency – having a percentage of ownership in the company.  Investors will want percentages as repayment for their investment, and they will want a say in the business as well.  You will have to decide how far you will dilute your shares, and how the company will be divided, if at all.  If you don’t plan in advance, you will find that after gaining three or four investors, suddenly you are the minority owner in your own dream.  You need to understand funding carefully.  This single module is worth all the money you would have spent on the whole course alone.  I encourage everyone to listen to this single module even if they don’t watch any of the others.     Press End to Start the Game – Exists! The final module is exit strategies.  You did all this work, dealt with all political and legal issues.  What are you going to get out of it? The answer is simple: money.  Maybe you want your company to be bought out, for you talent to bring you a profit.  You can sell the company to someone and still head it.  Many options are available.  You could sell and still work as an employee but no longer own the company.  There are many exit strategies.  This is where all your hard work comes into play.  It is important not to feel fooled at any step.  There are so many good ideas that end up in the garbage because of poor planning, so that if you find yourself successful, you don’t want to blow it at this step!  The exit is important.  I thought that this aspect of the course was completely unique, and I loved Stephen’s point of view.  I was lost deep in thought after this module ended.  I actually took two hours worth of notes on this section alone – and it was only a three hour course.  I am planning on attending this course one more time next week, just to catch up on all the small bits of wisdom I’m sure I missed. Thank you Stephen for bringing your real world experience with us!  I recommend that everyone attends this course, even if they don’t want to begin their own start-up company. It was indeed a long day for me. Do not forget to read part 1 of this story and attend course Practices for Software Startup Pluralsight Course. Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com) Filed under: Best Practices, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • SQL SERVER – Interview Questions and Answers – Frequently Asked Questions – Introduction – Day 1 of 31

    - by pinaldave
    List of all the Interview Questions and Answers Series blogs Posts covering interview questions and answers always make for interesting reading.  Some people like the subject for their helpful hints and thought provoking subject, and others dislike these posts because they feel it is nothing more than cheating.  I’d like to discuss the pros and cons of a Question and Answer format here. Interview Questions and Answers are Helpful Just like blog posts, books, and articles, interview Question and Answer discussions are learning material.  The popular Dummy’s books or Idiots Guides are not only for “dummies,” but can help everyone relearn the fundamentals.  Question and Answer discussions can serve the same purpose.  You could call this SQL Server Fundamentals or SQL Server 101. I have administrated hundreds of interviews during my career and I have noticed that sometimes an interviewee with several years of experience lacks an understanding of the fundamentals.  These individuals have been in the industry for so long, usually working on a very specific project, that the ABCs of the business have slipped their mind. Or, when a college graduate is looking to get into the industry, he is not expected to have experience since he is just graduated. However, the new grad is expected to have an understanding of fundamentals and theory.  Sometimes after the stress of final exams and graduation, it can be difficult to remember the correct answers to interview questions, though. An interview Question and Answer discussion can be very helpful to both these individuals.  It is simply a way to go back over the building blocks of a topic.  Many times a simple review like this will help “jog” your memory, and all those previously-memorized facts will come flooding back to you.  It is not a way to re-learn a topic, but a way to remind yourself of what you already know. A Question and Answer discussion can also be a way to go over old topics in a more interesting manner.  Especially if you have been working in the industry, or taking lots of classes on the topic, everything you read can sound like a repeat of what you already know.  Going over a topic in a new format can make the material seem fresh and interesting.  And an interested mind will be more engaged and remember more in the end. Interview Questions and Answers are Harmful A common argument against a Question and Answer discussion is that it will give someone a “cheat sheet.” A new guy with relatively little experience can read the interview questions and answers, and then memorize them. When an interviewer asks him the same questions, he will repeat the answers and get the job. Honestly, is he good hire because he memorized the interview questions? Wouldn’t it be better for the interviewer to hire someone with actual experience?  The answer is not as easy as it seems – there are many different factors to be considered. If the interviewer is asking fundamentals-related questions only, he gets the answers he wants to hear, and then hires this first candidate – there is a good chance that he is hiring based on personality rather than experience.  If the interviewer is smart he will ask deeper questions, have more than one person on the interview team, and interview a variety of candidates.  If one interviewee happens to memorize some answers, it usually doesn’t mean he will automatically get the job at the expense of more qualified candidates. Another argument against interview Question and Answers is that it will give candidates a false sense of confidence, and that they will appear more qualified than they are. Well, if that is true, it will not last after the first interview when the candidate is asked difficult questions and he cannot find the answers in the list of interview Questions and Answers.  Besides, confidence is one of the best things to walk into an interview with! In today’s competitive job market, there are often hundreds of candidates applying for the same position.  With so many applicants to choose from, interviewers must make decisions about who to call back and who to hire based on their gut feeling.  One drawback to reading an interview Question and Answer article is that you might sound very boring in your interview – saying the same thing as every single candidate, and parroting answers that sound like someone else wrote them for you – because they did.  However, it is definitely better to go to an interview prepared, just make sure that you give a lot of thought to your answers to make them sound like your own voice.  Remember that you will be hired based on your skills as well as your personality, so don’t think that having all the right answers will make get you hired.  A good interviewee will be prepared, confident, and know how to stand out. My Opinion A list of interview Questions and Answers is really helpful as a refresher or for beginners. To really ace an interview, one needs to have real-world, hands-on experience with SQL Server as well. Interview questions just serve as a starter or easy read for experienced professionals. When I have to learn new technology, I often search online for interview questions and get an idea about the breadth and depth of the technology. Next Action I am going to write about interview Questions and Answers for next 30 days. I have previously written a series of interview questions and answers; now I have re-written them keeping the latest version of SQL Server and current industry progress in mind. If you have faced interesting interview questions or situations, please write to me and I will publish them as a guest post. If you want me to add few more details, leave a comment and I will make sure that I do my best to accommodate. Tomorrow we will start the interview Questions and Answers series, with a few interesting stories, best practices and guest posts. We will have a prize give-away and other awards when the series ends. List of all the Interview Questions and Answers Series blogs Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com) Filed under: Pinal Dave, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Interview Questions and Answers, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL, Technology

    Read the article

  • Big Data – Is Big Data Relevant to me? – Big Data Questionnaires – Guest Post by Vinod Kumar

    - by Pinal Dave
    This guest post is by Vinod Kumar. Vinod Kumar has worked with SQL Server extensively since joining the industry over a decade ago. Working on various versions of SQL Server 7.0, Oracle 7.3 and other database technologies – he now works with the Microsoft Technology Center (MTC) as a Technology Architect. Let us read the blog post in Vinod’s own voice. I think the series from Pinal is a good one for anyone planning to start on Big Data journey from the basics. In my daily customer interactions this buzz of “Big Data” always comes up, I react generally saying – “Sir, do you really have a ‘Big Data’ problem or do you have a big Data problem?” Generally, there is a silence in the air when I ask this question. Data is everywhere in organizations – be it big data, small data, all data and for few it is bad data which is same as no data :). Wow, don’t discount me as someone who opposes “Big Data”, I am a big supporter as much as I am a critic of the abuse of this term by the people. In this post, I wanted to let my mind flow so that you can also think in the direction I want you to see these concepts. In any case, this is not an exhaustive dump of what is in my mind – but you will surely get the drift how I am going to question Big Data terms from customers!!! Is Big Data Relevant to me? Many of my customers talk to me like blank whiteboard with no idea – “why Big Data”. They want to jump into the bandwagon of technology and they want to decipher insights from their unexplored data a.k.a. unstructured data with structured data. So what are these industry scenario’s that come to mind? Here are some of them: Financials Fraud detection: Banks and Credit cards are monitoring your spending habits on real-time basis. Customer Segmentation: applies in every industry from Banking to Retail to Aviation to Utility and others where they deal with end customer who consume their products and services. Customer Sentiment Analysis: Responding to negative brand perception on social or amplify the positive perception. Sales and Marketing Campaign: Understand the impact and get closer to customer delight. Call Center Analysis: attempt to take unstructured voice recordings and analyze them for content and sentiment. Medical Reduce Re-admissions: How to build a proactive follow-up engagements with patients. Patient Monitoring: How to track Inpatient, Out-Patient, Emergency Visits, Intensive Care Units etc. Preventive Care: Disease identification and Risk stratification is a very crucial business function for medical. Claims fraud detection: There is no precise dollars that one can put here, but this is a big thing for the medical field. Retail Customer Sentiment Analysis, Customer Care Centers, Campaign Management. Supply Chain Analysis: Every sensors and RFID data can be tracked for warehouse space optimization. Location based marketing: Based on where a check-in happens retail stores can be optimize their marketing. Telecom Price optimization and Plans, Finding Customer churn, Customer loyalty programs Call Detail Record (CDR) Analysis, Network optimizations, User Location analysis Customer Behavior Analysis Insurance Fraud Detection & Analysis, Pricing based on customer Sentiment Analysis, Loyalty Management Agents Analysis, Customer Value Management This list can go on to other areas like Utility, Manufacturing, Travel, ITES etc. So as you can see, there are obviously interesting use cases for each of these industry verticals. These are just representative list. Where to start? A lot of times I try to quiz customers on a number of dimensions before starting a Big Data conversation. Are you getting the data you need the way you want it and in a timely manner? Can you get in and analyze the data you need? How quickly is IT to respond to your BI Requests? How easily can you get at the data that you need to run your business/department/project? How are you currently measuring your business? Can you get the data you need to react WITHIN THE QUARTER to impact behaviors to meet your numbers or is it always “rear-view mirror?” How are you measuring: The Brand Customer Sentiment Your Competition Your Pricing Your performance Supply Chain Efficiencies Predictive product / service positioning What are your key challenges of driving collaboration across your global business?  What the challenges in innovation? What challenges are you facing in getting more information out of your data? Note: Garbage-in is Garbage-out. Hold good for all reporting / analytics requirements Big Data POCs? A number of customers get into the realm of setting a small team to work on Big Data – well it is a great start from an understanding point of view, but I tend to ask a number of other questions to such customers. Some of these common questions are: To what degree is your advanced analytics (natural language processing, sentiment analysis, predictive analytics and classification) paired with your Big Data’s efforts? Do you have dedicated resources exploring the possibilities of advanced analytics in Big Data for your business line? Do you plan to employ machine learning technology while doing Advanced Analytics? How is Social Media being monitored in your organization? What is your ability to scale in terms of storage and processing power? Do you have a system in place to sort incoming data in near real time by potential value, data quality, and use frequency? Do you use event-driven architecture to manage incoming data? Do you have specialized data services that can accommodate different formats, security, and the management requirements of multiple data sources? Is your organization currently using or considering in-memory analytics? To what degree are you able to correlate data from your Big Data infrastructure with that from your enterprise data warehouse? Have you extended the role of Data Stewards to include ownership of big data components? Do you prioritize data quality based on the source system (that is Facebook/Twitter data has lower quality thresholds than radio frequency identification (RFID) for a tracking system)? Do your retention policies consider the different legal responsibilities for storing Big Data for a specific amount of time? Do Data Scientists work in close collaboration with Data Stewards to ensure data quality? How is access to attributes of Big Data being given out in the organization? Are roles related to Big Data (Advanced Analyst, Data Scientist) clearly defined? How involved is risk management in the Big Data governance process? Is there a set of documented policies regarding Big Data governance? Is there an enforcement mechanism or approach to ensure that policies are followed? Who is the key sponsor for your Big Data governance program? (The CIO is best) Do you have defined policies surrounding the use of social media data for potential employees and customers, as well as the use of customer Geo-location data? How accessible are complex analytic routines to your user base? What is the level of involvement with outside vendors and third parties in regard to the planning and execution of Big Data projects? What programming technologies are utilized by your data warehouse/BI staff when working with Big Data? These are some of the important questions I ask each customer who is actively evaluating Big Data trends for their organizations. These questions give you a sense of direction where to start, what to use, how to secure, how to analyze and more. Sign off Any Big data is analysis is incomplete without a compelling story. The best way to understand this is to watch Hans Rosling – Gapminder (2:17 to 6:06) videos about the third world myths. Don’t get overwhelmed with the Big Data buzz word, the destination to what your data speaks is important. In this blog post, we did not particularly look at any Big Data technologies. This is a set of questionnaire one needs to keep in mind as they embark their journey of Big Data. I did write some of the basics in my blog: Big Data – Big Hype yet Big Opportunity. Do let me know if these questions make sense?  Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)Filed under: Big Data, PostADay, SQL, SQL Authority, SQL Query, SQL Server, SQL Tips and Tricks, T SQL

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139  | Next Page >