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  • Can we turn on the iphone's number keyboard WITHOUT using type=number?

    - by Simple As Could Be
    I'm making a webapp, and I'd like an input field to show the Iphone's number keypad. I understand that type=number will make the keypad show the way I'd like. The trouble is that type=number does not support placeholder text. So if I would like this: Expiration Date: [eg: 2010] I can not get it to work, and also show the right keyboard. Is there a way to force the iphone keyboard into number mode without using the number input type?

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  • Can I check if e-mail address is valid?

    - by simple
    How can I implement following logic? User registers with an e-mail address If provided e-mail address is a valid email address Then user account get's activated or if it is a fake email then user account is not activated I doubt that I can catch the - "Delivery failed reply message", right? anyhow how would you suggest to implement the above logic? PS. I will have to find a way no matter what, client wants it =)

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  • Passing Large amount of data in PHP.

    - by Simple
    I would like to know what is the best way to pass a large amount of XML data from one PHP script to another. I have a script that reads in an XML feed of jobs. I would like to have the script display a list of the job titles as links. When the user clicks a link they would be taken to another page displaying the details for that job. The job details are too large to send in the query string, and it seems poor style to start a session for data that isn't specific to that user. Any ideas?

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  • That’s a wrap! Almost, there’s still one last chance to attend a SQL in the City event in 2012

    - by Red and the Community
    The communities team are back from the SQL in the City multi-city US Tour and we are delighted to have met so many happy SQL Server professionals and Red Gate customers. We set out to run a series of back-to-back events in order to meet, talk to and delight as many SQL Server and Red Gate enthusiasts as possible in 5 different cities in 11 days. We did it! The attendees had a good time too and 99% of them would attend another SQL in the City event in 2013 – so it seems we left an impression. There were a range of topics on the event agenda, ranging from ‘The Whys & Hows of Continuous Integration’, ‘Database Maintenance Essentials’, ‘Red Gate tools – The Complete Lifecycle’, ‘Automated Deployment: Application And Database Releases Without The Headache’, ‘The Ten Commandments of SQL Server Monitoring’ and many more. Videos and slides from the events will be posted to the event website in November, after our last event of 2012. SQL in the City Seattle – November 5 Join us for free and hear from some of the very best names in the SQL Server world. SQL Server MVPs such as; Steve Jones, Grant Fritchey, Brent Ozar, Gail Shaw and more will be presenting at the Bell Harbor conference center for one day only. We’re even taking on board some of the recent attendee-suggestions of how we can improve the events (feedback from the 65% of attendees who came to our US tour events), first off we’re extending the drinks celebration in the evening! Rather than just a 30 minute drink and run, attendees will have up to 2 hours to enjoy free drinks, relax and network in a fantastic environment amongst some really smart like-minded professionals. If you’re interested in expanding your SQL Server knowledge, would like to learn more about Red Gate tools, get yourself registered for the last SQL in the City event of 2012. It’s free, fun and we’re very friendly! I look forward to seeing you in Seattle on Monday November 5. Cheers, Annabel.

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  • Mr Flibble: As Seen Through a Lens, Darkly

    - by Phil Factor
    One of the rewarding things about getting involved with Simple-Talk has been in meeting and working with some pretty daunting talents. I’d like to say that Dom Reed’s talents are at the end of the visible spectrum, but then there is Richard, who pops up on national radio occasionally, presenting intellectual programs, Andrew, master of the ukulele, with his pioneering local history work, and Tony with marathon running and his past as a university lecturer. However, Dom, who is Red Gate’s head of creative design and who did the preliminary design work for Simple-Talk, has taken the art photography to an extreme that was impossible before Photoshop. He’s not the first person to take a photograph of himself every day for two years, but he is definitely the first to weave the results into a frightening narrative that veers from comedy to pathos, using all the arts of Photoshop to create a fictional character, Mr Flibble.   Have a look at some of the Flickr pages. Uncle Spike The B-Men – Woolverine The 2011 BoyZ iN Sink reunion tour turned out to be their last Error 404 – Flibble not found Mr Flibble is not a normal type of alter-ego. We generally prefer to choose bronze age warriors of impossibly magnificent physique and stamina; superheroes who bestride the world, scorning the forces of evil and anarchy in a series noble and righteous quests. Not so Dom, whose Mr Flibble is vulnerable, and laid low by an addiction to toxic substances. His work has gained an international cult following and is used as course material by several courses in photography. Although his work was for a while ignored by the more conventional world of ‘art’ photography they became famous through the internet. His photos have received well over a million views on Flickr. It was definitely time to turn this work into a book, because the whole sequence of images has its maximum effect when seen in sequence. He has a Kickstarter project page, one of the first following the recent UK launch of the crowdfunding platform. The publication of the book should be a major event and the £45 I shall divvy up will be one of the securest investments I shall ever make. The local news in Cambridge picked up on the project and I can quote from the report by the excellent Cabume website , the source of Tech news from the ‘Cambridge cluster’ Put really simply Mr Flibble likes to dress up and take pictures of himself. One of the benefits of a split personality, however is that Mr Flibble is supported in his endeavour by Reed’s top notch photography skills, supreme mastery of Photoshop and unflinching dedication to the cause. The duo have collaborated to take a picture every day for the past 730-plus days. It is not a big surprise that neither Mr Flibble nor Reed watches any TV: In addition to his full-time role at Cambridge software house,Red Gate Software as head of creativity and the two to five hours a day he spends taking the Mr Flibble shots, Reed also helps organise the . And now Reed is using Kickstarter to see if the world is ready for a Mr Flibble coffee table book. Judging by the early response it is. At the time of writing, just a few days after it went live, ‘I Drink Lead Paint: An absurd photography book by Mr Flibble’ had raised £1,545 of the £10,000 target it needs to raise by the Friday 30 November deadline from 37 backers. Following the standard Kickstarter template, Reed is offering a series of rewards based on the amount pledged, ranging from a Mr Flibble desktop wallpaper for pledges of £5 or more to a signed copy of the book for pledges of £45 or more, right up to a starring role in the book for £1,500. Mr Flibble is unquestionably one of the more deranged Kickstarter hopefuls, but don’t think for a second that he doesn’t have a firm grasp on the challenges he faces on the road to immortalisation on 150 gsm stock. Under the section ‘risks and challenges’ on his Kickstarter page his statement begins: “An angry horde of telepathic iguanas discover the world’s last remaining stock of vintage lead paint and hold me to ransom. Gosh how I love to guzzle lead paint. Anyway… faced with such brazen bravado, I cower at the thought of taking on their combined might and die a sad and lonely Flibble deprived of my one and only true liquid love.” At which point, Reed manages to wrestle away the keyboard, giving him the opportunity to present slightly more cogent analysis of the obstacles the project must still overcome. We asked Reed a few questions about Mr Flibble’s Kickstarter adventure and felt that his responses were worth publishing in full: Firstly, how did you manage it – holding down a full time job and also conceiving and executing these ideas on a daily basis? I employed a small team of ferocious gerbils to feed me ideas on a daily basis. Whilst most of their ideas were incomprehensibly rubbish and usually revolved around food, just occasionally they’d give me an idea like my B-Men series. As a backup plan though, I found that the best way to generate ideas was to actually start taking photos. If I were to stand in front of the camera, pull a silly face, place a vegetable on my head or something else equally stupid, the resulting photo of that would typically spark an idea when I came to look at it. Sitting around idly trying to think of an idea was doomed to result in no ideas. I admit that I really struggled with time. I’m proud that I never missed a day, but it was definitely hard when you were late from work, tired or doing something socially on the same day. I don’t watch TV, which I guess really helps, because I’d frequently be spending 2-5 hours taking and processing the photos every day. Are there any overlaps between software development and creative thinking? Software is an inherently creative business and the speed that it moves ensures you always have to find solutions to new things. Everyone in the team needs to be a problem solver. Has it helped me specifically with my photography? Probably. Working within teams that continually need to figure out new stuff keeps the brain feisty I suppose, and I guess I’m continually exposed to a lot of possible sources of inspiration. How specifically will this Kickstarter project allow you to test the commercial appeal of your work and do you plan to get the book into shops? It’s taken a while to be confident saying it, but I know that people like the work that I do. I’ve had well over a million views of my pictures, many humbling comments and I know I’ve garnered some loyal fans out there who anticipate my next photo. For me, this Kickstarter is about seeing if there’s worth to my work beyond just making people smile. In an online world where there’s an abundance of freely available content, can you hope to receive anything from what you do, or would people just move onto the next piece of content if you happen to ask for some support? A book has been the single-most requested thing that people have asked me to produce and it’s something that I feel would showcase my work well. It’s just hard to convince people in the publishing industry just now to take any kind of risk – they’ve been hit hard. If I can show that people would like my work enough to buy a book, then it sends a pretty clear picture that publishers might hear, or it gives me the confidence enough to invest in myself a bit more – hard to do when you’re riddled with self-doubt! I’d love to see my work in the shops, yes. I could see it being the thing that someone flips through idly as they’re Christmas shopping and recognizing that it’d be just the perfect gift for their difficult to buy for friend or relative. That said, working in the software industry means I’m clearly aware of how I could use technology to distribute my work, but I can’t deny that there’s something very appealing to having a physical thing to hold in your hands. If the project is successful is there a chance that it could become a full-time job? At the moment that seems like a distant dream, as should this be successful, there are many more steps I’d need to take to reach any kind of business viability. Kickstarter seems exactly that – a way for people to help kick start me into something that could take off. If people like my work and want me to succeed with it, then taking a look at my Kickstarter page (and hopefully pledging a bit of support) would make my elbows blush considerably. So there is is. An opportunity to open the wallet just a bit to ensure that one of the more unusual talents sees the light in the format it deserves.  

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  • Operator of the week - Assert

    - by Fabiano Amorim
    Well my friends, I was wondering how to help you in a practical way to understand execution plans. So I think I'll talk about the Showplan Operators. Showplan Operators are used by the Query Optimizer (QO) to build the query plan in order to perform a specified operation. A query plan will consist of many physical operators. The Query Optimizer uses a simple language that represents each physical operation by an operator, and each operator is represented in the graphical execution plan by an icon. I'll try to talk about one operator every week, but so as to avoid having to continue to write about these operators for years, I'll mention only of those that are more common: The first being the Assert. The Assert is used to verify a certain condition, it validates a Constraint on every row to ensure that the condition was met. If, for example, our DDL includes a check constraint which specifies only two valid values for a column, the Assert will, for every row, validate the value passed to the column to ensure that input is consistent with the check constraint. Assert  and Check Constraints: Let's see where the SQL Server uses that information in practice. Take the following T-SQL: IF OBJECT_ID('Tab1') IS NOT NULL   DROP TABLE Tab1 GO CREATE TABLE Tab1(ID Integer, Gender CHAR(1))  GO  ALTER TABLE TAB1 ADD CONSTRAINT ck_Gender_M_F CHECK(Gender IN('M','F'))  GO INSERT INTO Tab1(ID, Gender) VALUES(1,'X') GO To the command above the SQL Server has generated the following execution plan: As we can see, the execution plan uses the Assert operator to check that the inserted value doesn't violate the Check Constraint. In this specific case, the Assert applies the rule, 'if the value is different to "F" and different to "M" than return 0 otherwise returns NULL'. The Assert operator is programmed to show an error if the returned value is not NULL; in other words, the returned value is not a "M" or "F". Assert checking Foreign Keys Now let's take a look at an example where the Assert is used to validate a foreign key constraint. Suppose we have this  query: ALTER TABLE Tab1 ADD ID_Genders INT GO  IF OBJECT_ID('Tab2') IS NOT NULL   DROP TABLE Tab2 GO CREATE TABLE Tab2(ID Integer PRIMARY KEY, Gender CHAR(1))  GO  INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(1, 'F') INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(2, 'M') INSERT INTO Tab2(ID, Gender) VALUES(3, 'N') GO  ALTER TABLE Tab1 ADD CONSTRAINT fk_Tab2 FOREIGN KEY (ID_Genders) REFERENCES Tab2(ID) GO  INSERT INTO Tab1(ID, ID_Genders, Gender) VALUES(1, 4, 'X') Let's look at the text execution plan to see what these Assert operators were doing. To see the text execution plan just execute SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON before run the insert command. |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN NOT [Pass1008] AND [Expr1007] IS NULL THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))      |--Nested Loops(Left Semi Join, PASSTHRU:([Tab1].[ID_Genders] IS NULL), OUTER REFERENCES:([Tab1].[ID_Genders]), DEFINE:([Expr1007] = [PROBE VALUE]))           |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN [Tab1].[Gender]<>'F' AND [Tab1].[Gender]<>'M' THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))           |    |--Clustered Index Insert(OBJECT:([Tab1].[PK]), SET:([Tab1].[ID] = RaiseIfNullInsert([@1]),[Tab1].[ID_Genders] = [@2],[Tab1].[Gender] = [Expr1003]), DEFINE:([Expr1003]=CONVERT_IMPLICIT(char(1),[@3],0)))           |--Clustered Index Seek(OBJECT:([Tab2].[PK]), SEEK:([Tab2].[ID]=[Tab1].[ID_Genders]) ORDERED FORWARD) Here we can see the Assert operator twice, first (looking down to up in the text plan and the right to left in the graphical plan) validating the Check Constraint. The same concept showed above is used, if the exit value is "0" than keep running the query, but if NULL is returned shows an exception. The second Assert is validating the result of the Tab1 and Tab2 join. It is interesting to see the "[Expr1007] IS NULL". To understand that you need to know what this Expr1007 is, look at the Probe Value (green text) in the text plan and you will see that it is the result of the join. If the value passed to the INSERT at the column ID_Gender exists in the table Tab2, then that probe will return the join value; otherwise it will return NULL. So the Assert is checking the value of the search at the Tab2; if the value that is passed to the INSERT is not found  then Assert will show one exception. If the value passed to the column ID_Genders is NULL than the SQL can't show a exception, in that case it returns "0" and keeps running the query. If you run the INSERT above, the SQL will show an exception because of the "X" value, but if you change the "X" to "F" and run again, it will show an exception because of the value "4". If you change the value "4" to NULL, 1, 2 or 3 the insert will be executed without any error. Assert checking a SubQuery: The Assert operator is also used to check one subquery. As we know, one scalar subquery can't validly return more than one value: Sometimes, however, a  mistake happens, and a subquery attempts to return more than one value . Here the Assert comes into play by validating the condition that a scalar subquery returns just one value. Take the following query: INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')    INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')    |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN NOT [Pass1016] AND [Expr1015] IS NULL THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))        |--Nested Loops(Left Semi Join, PASSTHRU:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo] IS NULL), OUTER REFERENCES:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo]), DEFINE:([Expr1015] = [PROBE VALUE]))              |--Assert(WHERE:([Expr1017]))             |    |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1017]=CASE WHEN [tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo]<>'F' AND [tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo]<>'M' THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))              |         |--Clustered Index Insert(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[PK__Tab1__3214EC277097A3C8]), SET:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo] = [Expr1008],[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[Sexo] = [Expr1009],[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID] = [Expr1003]))              |              |--Top(TOP EXPRESSION:((1)))              |                   |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1008]=[Expr1014], [Expr1009]='F'))              |                        |--Nested Loops(Left Outer Join)              |                             |--Compute Scalar(DEFINE:([Expr1003]=getidentity((1856985942),(2),NULL)))              |                             |    |--Constant Scan              |                             |--Assert(WHERE:(CASE WHEN [Expr1013]>(1) THEN (0) ELSE NULL END))              |                                  |--Stream Aggregate(DEFINE:([Expr1013]=Count(*), [Expr1014]=ANY([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo])))             |                                       |--Clustered Index Scan(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[PK__Tab1__3214EC277097A3C8]))              |--Clustered Index Seek(OBJECT:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab2].[PK__Tab2__3214EC27755C58E5]), SEEK:([tempdb].[dbo].[Tab2].[ID]=[tempdb].[dbo].[Tab1].[ID_TipoSexo]) ORDERED FORWARD)  You can see from this text showplan that SQL Server as generated a Stream Aggregate to count how many rows the SubQuery will return, This value is then passed to the Assert which then does its job by checking its validity. Is very interesting to see that  the Query Optimizer is smart enough be able to avoid using assert operators when they are not necessary. For instance: INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1 WHERE ID = 1), 'F') INSERT INTO Tab1(ID_TipoSexo, Sexo) VALUES((SELECT TOP 1 ID_TipoSexo FROM Tab1), 'F')  For both these INSERTs, the Query Optimiser is smart enough to know that only one row will ever be returned, so there is no need to use the Assert. Well, that's all folks, I see you next week with more "Operators". Cheers, Fabiano

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  • Upcoming Webinar: Practical Performance Profiling presented by Jean-Philippe Gouigoux

    - by Michaela Murray
    Hot on the heels of releasing his new book, Practical Performance Profiling, I'm delighted that Jean-Philippe Gouigoux will be joining us on April 3rd to present a free webinar on optimizing .NET code performance. He gave me a sneak preview of his talk last week and there's a lot of really useful advice in there. He'll be discussing why he thinks 20% of performance problems account for 80% of lost time, before looking at some real examples of both server-side and client-side profiling, and covering a variety of best practices you can use to improve the performance of your own code. The webinar will be followed by a Q&A session where he'll be joined by Red Gate technical support engineer Chris Allen to answer any of your questions. Jean-Philippe has 10 years' experience in .NET, most recently as system architect at MGDIS, and was recently made a Microsoft MVP for his contributions to the .NET community. I'm really excited that he's found a gap between his day job and university lecturing to share his knowledge, and I hope you'll be able to join us on April 3rd - it's free but you do need to register in advance at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/829014934. I'll see you there!

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  • SQLBeat Podcast – Episode 4 – Mark Rasmussen on Machine Guns,Jelly Fish and SQL Storage Engine

    - by SQLBeat
    In this this 4th SQLBeat Podcast I talk with fellow Dane Mark Rasmussen on SQL, machine guns and jelly fish fights; apparently they are common in our homeland. Who am I kidding, I am not Danish, but I try to be in this podcast. Also, we exchange knowledge on SQL Server storage engine particulars as well as some other “internals” like password hashes and contained databases. And then it just gets weird and awesome. There is lots of background noise from people who did not realize we were recording. And I call them out and make fun of them as they deserve; well just one person who is well known in these parts. I also learn the correct (almost) pronunciation of “fjord”. Seriously, a word with an “F” followed by a “J”. And there are always the hippies and hipsters to discuss. Should be fun.

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  • A new tool in beta: Conflict Alert

    - by Alex Davies
    You know that manual merges are a real pain? Well, I’ve just released a Visual Studio extension that makes manual merges a thing of the past. No source control system can automatically merge two edits to the same line of code. Conflict Alert solves this by warning you that you are heading down a path that will cause a manual merge later down the line. You choose whether you want to carry on, or talk to your teammate and find out what they are doing. Have you ever warned your teammates that you are doing a big refactor, and that they should ‘keep out of class X’? Conflict Alert tells them for you automatically by highlighting the sections of code that you have edited.   It doesn’t need to connect to your source control system, so it works no matter which you use. Its a first release, and I hope it is useful. Any feedback would be gratefully received. Grab a teammate and try it now.

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  • Another Marketing Conference, part two – the afternoon

    - by Roger Hart
    In my previous post, I’ve covered the morning sessions at AMC2012. Here’s the rest of the write-up. I’ve skipped Charles Nixon’s session which was a blend of funky futurism and professional development advice, but you can see his slides here. I’ve also skipped the Google presentation, as it was a little thin on insight. 6 – Brand ambassadors: Getting universal buy in across the organisation, Vanessa Northam Slides are here This was the strongest enforcement of the idea that brand and campaign values need to be delivered throughout the organization if they’re going to work. Vanessa runs internal communications at e-on, and shared her experience of using internal comms to align an organization and thereby get the most out of a campaign. She views the purpose of internal comms as: “…to help leaders, to communicate the purpose and future of an organization, and support change.” This (and culture) primes front line staff, which creates customer experience and spreads brand. You ensure a whole organization knows what’s going on with both internal and external comms. If everybody is aligned and informed, if everybody can clearly articulate your brand and campaign goals, then you can turn everybody into an advocate. Alignment is a powerful tool for delivering a consistent experience and message. The pathological counter example is the one in which a marketing message goes out, which creates inbound customer contacts that front line contact staff haven’t been briefed to handle. The NatWest campaign was again mentioned in this context. The good example was e-on’s cheaper tariff campaign. Building a groundswell of internal excitement, and even running an internal launch meant everyone could contribute to a good customer experience. They found that meter readers were excited – not a group they’d considered as obvious in providing customer experience. But they were a group that has a lot of face-to-face contact with customers, and often were asked questions they may not have been briefed to answer. Being able to communicate a simple new message made it easier for them, and also let them become a sales and marketing asset to the organization. 7 – Goodbye Internet, Hello Outernet: the rise and rise of augmented reality, Matt Mills I wasn’t going to write this up, because it was essentially a sales demo for Aurasma. But the technology does merit some discussion. Basically, it replaces QR codes with visual recognition, and provides a simple-looking back end for attaching content. It’s quite sexy. But here’s my beef with it: QR codes had a clear visual language – when you saw one you knew what it was and what to do with it. They were clunky, but they had the “getting started” problem solved out of the box once you knew what you were looking at. However, they fail because QR code reading isn’t native to the platform. You needed an app, which meant you needed to know to download one. Consequentially, you can’t use QR codes with and ubiquity, or depend on them. This means marketers, content providers, etc, never pushed them, and they remained and awkward oddity, a minority sport. Aurasma half solves problem two, and re-introduces problem one, making it potentially half as useful as a QR code. It’s free, and you can apparently build it into your own apps. Add to that the likelihood of it becoming native to the platform if it takes off, and it may have legs. I guess we’ll see. 8 – We all need to code, Helen Mayor Great title – good point. If there was anybody in the room who didn’t at least know basic HTML, and if Helen’s presentation inspired them to learn, that’s fantastic. However, this was a half hour sales pitch for a basic coding training course. Beyond advocating coding skills it contained no useful content. Marketers may also like to consider some of these resources if they’re looking to learn code: Code Academy – free interactive tutorials Treehouse – learn web design, web dev, or app dev WebPlatform.org – tutorials and documentation for web tech  11 – Understanding our inner creativity, Margaret Boden This session was the most theoretical and probably least actionable of the day. It also held my attention utterly. Margaret spoke fluently, fascinatingly, without slides, on the subject of types of creativity and how they work. It was splendid. Yes, it raised a wry smile whenever she spoke of “the content of advertisements” and gave an example from 1970s TV ads, but even without the attempt to meet the conference’s theme this would have been thoroughly engaging. There are, Margaret suggested, three types of creativity: Combinatorial creativity The most common form, and consisting of synthesising ideas from existing and familiar concepts and tropes. Exploratory creativity Less common, this involves exploring the limits and quirks of a particular constraint or style. Transformational creativity This is uncommon, and arises from finding a way to do something that the existing rules would hold to be impossible. In essence, this involves breaking one of the constraints that exploratory creativity is composed from. Combinatorial creativity, she suggested, is particularly important for attaching favourable ideas to existing things. As such is it probably worth developing for marketing. Exploratory creativity may then come into play in something like developing and optimising an idea or campaign that now has momentum. Transformational creativity exists at the edges of this exploration. She suggested that products may often be transformational, but that marketing seemed unlikely to in her experience. This made me wonder about Listerine. Crucially, transformational creativity is characterised by there being some element of continuity with the strictures of previous thinking. Once it has happened, there may be  move from a revolutionary instance into an explored style. Again, from a marketing perspective, this seems to chime well with the thinking in Youngme Moon’s book: Different Talking about the birth of Modernism is visual art, Margaret pointed out that transformational creativity has historically risked a backlash, demanding what is essentially an education of the market. This is best accomplished by referring back to the continuities with the past in order to make the new familiar. Thoughts The afternoon is harder to sum up than the morning. It felt less concrete, and was troubled by a short run of poor presentations in the middle. Mainly, I found myself wrestling with the internal comms issue. It’s one of those things that seems astonishingly obvious in hindsight, but any campaign – particularly any large one – is doomed if the people involved can’t believe in it. We’ve run things here that haven’t gone so well, of course we have; who hasn’t? I’m not going to air any laundry, but people not being informed (much less aligned) feels like a common factor. It’s tough though. Managing and anticipating information needs across an organization of any size can’t be easy. Even the simple things like ensuring sales and support departments know what’s in a product release, and what messages go with it are easy to botch. The thing I like about framing this as a brand and campaign advocacy problem is that it makes it likely to get addressed. Better is always sexier than less-worse. Any technical communicator who’s ever felt crowded out by a content strategist or marketing copywriter  knows this – increasing revenue gets a seat at the table far more readily than reducing support costs, even if the financial impact is identical. So that’s it from AMC. The big thought-provokers were social buying behaviour and eliciting behaviour change, and the value of internal communications in ensuring successful campaigns and continuity of customer experience. I’ll be chewing over that for a while, and I’d definitely return next year.      

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  • On Writing Blogs

    - by Tony Davis
    Why are so many blogs about IT so difficult to read? Over at SQLServerCentral.com, we do a special subscription-only newsletter called Database Weekly. Every other week, it is my turn to look through all the blogs, news and events that might be of relevance to people working with databases. We provide the title, with the link, and a short abstract of what you can expect to read. It is a popular service with close to a million subscribers. You might think that this is a happy and fascinating task. Sometimes, yes. If a blog comes to the point quickly, and says something both interesting and original, then it has our immediate attention. If it backs up what it says with supporting material, then it is more-or-less home and dry, featured in DBW's list. If it also takes trouble over the formatting and presentation, maybe with an illustration or two and any code well-formatted, then we are agog with joy and it is marked as a must-visit destination in our blog roll. More often, however, a task that should be fun becomes a routine chore, and the effort of trawling so many badly-written blogs is enough to make any conscientious Health & Safety officer whistle through their teeth at the risk to the editor's spiritual and psychological well-being. And yet, frustratingly, most blogs could be improved very easily. There is, I believe, a simple formula for a successful blog. First, choose a single topic that is reasonably fresh and interesting. Second, get to the point quickly; explain in the first paragraph exactly what the blog is about, and then stay on topic. In writing the first paragraph, you must picture yourself as a pilot, hearing the smooth roar of the engines as your plane gracefully takes air. Too often, however, the accompanying sound is that of the engine stuttering before the plane veers off the runway into a field, and a wheel falls off. The author meanders around the topic without getting to the point, and takes frequent off-radar diversions to talk about themselves, or the weather, or which friends have recently tagged them. This might work if you're J.D Salinger, or James Joyce, but it doesn't help a technical blog. Sometimes, the writing is so convoluted that we are entirely defeated in our quest to shoehorn its meaning into a simple summary sentence. Finally, write simply, in plain English, and in a conversational way such that you can read it out loud, and sound natural. That's it! If you could also avoid any references to The Matrix then this is a bonus but is purely personal preference. Cheers, Tony.

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  • SQL Server &ndash; Undelete a Table and Restore a Single Table from Backup

    - by Mladen Prajdic
    This post is part of the monthly community event called T-SQL Tuesday started by Adam Machanic (blog|twitter) and hosted by someone else each month. This month the host is Sankar Reddy (blog|twitter) and the topic is Misconceptions in SQL Server. You can follow posts for this theme on Twitter by looking at #TSQL2sDay hashtag. Let me start by saying: This code is a crazy hack that is to never be used unless you really, really have to. Really! And I don’t think there’s a time when you would really have to use it for real. Because it’s a hack there are number of things that can go wrong so play with it knowing that. I’ve managed to totally corrupt one database. :) Oh… and for those saying: yeah yeah.. you have a single table in a file group and you’re restoring that, I say “nay nay” to you. As we all know SQL Server can’t do single table restores from backup. This is kind of a obvious thing due to different relational integrity (RI) concerns. Since we have to maintain that we have to restore all tables represented in a RI graph. For this exercise i say BAH! to those concerns. Note that this method “works” only for simple tables that don’t have LOB and off rows data. The code can be expanded to include those but I’ve tried to leave things “simple”. Note that for this to work our table needs to be relatively static data-wise. This doesn’t work for OLTP table. Products are a perfect example of static data. They don’t change much between backups, pretty much everything depends on them and their table is one of those tables that are relatively easy to accidentally delete everything from. This only works if the database is in Full or Bulk-Logged recovery mode for tables where the contents have been deleted or truncated but NOT when a table was dropped. Everything we’ll talk about has to be done before the data pages are reused for other purposes. After deletion or truncation the pages are marked as reusable so you have to act fast. The best thing probably is to put the database into single user mode ASAP while you’re performing this procedure and return it to multi user after you’re done. How do we do it? We will be using an undocumented but known DBCC commands: DBCC PAGE, an undocumented function sys.fn_dblog and a little known DATABASE RESTORE PAGE option. All tests will be on a copy of Production.Product table in AdventureWorks database called Production.Product1 because the original table has FK constraints that prevent us from truncating it for testing. -- create a duplicate table. This doesn't preserve indexes!SELECT *INTO AdventureWorks.Production.Product1FROM AdventureWorks.Production.Product   After we run this code take a full back to perform further testing.   First let’s see what the difference between DELETE and TRUNCATE is when it comes to logging. With DELETE every row deletion is logged in the transaction log. With TRUNCATE only whole data page deallocations are logged in the transaction log. Getting deleted data pages is simple. All we have to look for is row delete entry in the sys.fn_dblog output. But getting data pages that were truncated from the transaction log presents a bit of an interesting problem. I will not go into depths of IAM(Index Allocation Map) and PFS (Page Free Space) pages but suffice to say that every IAM page has intervals that tell us which data pages are allocated for a table and which aren’t. If we deep dive into the sys.fn_dblog output we can see that once you truncate a table all the pages in all the intervals are deallocated and this is shown in the PFS page transaction log entry as deallocation of pages. For every 8 pages in the same extent there is one PFS page row in the transaction log. This row holds information about all 8 pages in CSV format which means we can get to this data with some parsing. A great help for parsing this stuff is Peter Debetta’s handy function dbo.HexStrToVarBin that converts hexadecimal string into a varbinary value that can be easily converted to integer tus giving us a readable page number. The shortened (columns removed) sys.fn_dblog output for a PFS page with CSV data for 1 extent (8 data pages) looks like this: -- [Page ID] is displayed in hex format. -- To convert it to readable int we'll use dbo.HexStrToVarBin function found at -- http://sqlblog.com/blogs/peter_debetta/archive/2007/03/09/t-sql-convert-hex-string-to-varbinary.aspx -- This function must be installed in the master databaseSELECT Context, AllocUnitName, [Page ID], DescriptionFROM sys.fn_dblog(NULL, NULL)WHERE [Current LSN] = '00000031:00000a46:007d' The pages at the end marked with 0x00—> are pages that are allocated in the extent but are not part of a table. We can inspect the raw content of each data page with a DBCC PAGE command: -- we need this trace flag to redirect output to the query window.DBCC TRACEON (3604); -- WITH TABLERESULTS gives us data in table format instead of message format-- we use format option 3 because it's the easiest to read and manipulate further onDBCC PAGE (AdventureWorks, 1, 613, 3) WITH TABLERESULTS   Since the DBACC PAGE output can be quite extensive I won’t put it here. You can see an example of it in the link at the beginning of this section. Getting deleted data back When we run a delete statement every row to be deleted is marked as a ghost record. A background process periodically cleans up those rows. A huge misconception is that the data is actually removed. It’s not. Only the pointers to the rows are removed while the data itself is still on the data page. We just can’t access it with normal means. To get those pointers back we need to restore every deleted page using the RESTORE PAGE option mentioned above. This restore must be done from a full backup, followed by any differential and log backups that you may have. This is necessary to bring the pages up to the same point in time as the rest of the data.  However the restore doesn’t magically connect the restored page back to the original table. It simply replaces the current page with the one from the backup. After the restore we use the DBCC PAGE to read data directly from all data pages and insert that data into a temporary table. To finish the RESTORE PAGE  procedure we finally have to take a tail log backup (simple backup of the transaction log) and restore it back. We can now insert data from the temporary table to our original table by hand. Getting truncated data back When we run a truncate the truncated data pages aren’t touched at all. Even the pointers to rows stay unchanged. Because of this getting data back from truncated table is simple. we just have to find out which pages belonged to our table and use DBCC PAGE to read data off of them. No restore is necessary. Turns out that the problems we had with finding the data pages is alleviated by not having to do a RESTORE PAGE procedure. Stop stalling… show me The Code! This is the code for getting back deleted and truncated data back. It’s commented in all the right places so don’t be afraid to take a closer look. Make sure you have a full backup before trying this out. Also I suggest that the last step of backing and restoring the tail log is performed by hand. USE masterGOIF OBJECT_ID('dbo.HexStrToVarBin') IS NULL RAISERROR ('No dbo.HexStrToVarBin installed. Go to http://sqlblog.com/blogs/peter_debetta/archive/2007/03/09/t-sql-convert-hex-string-to-varbinary.aspx and install it in master database' , 18, 1) SET NOCOUNT ONBEGIN TRY DECLARE @dbName VARCHAR(1000), @schemaName VARCHAR(1000), @tableName VARCHAR(1000), @fullBackupName VARCHAR(1000), @undeletedTableName VARCHAR(1000), @sql VARCHAR(MAX), @tableWasTruncated bit; /* THE FIRST LINE ARE OUR INPUT PARAMETERS In this case we're trying to recover Production.Product1 table in AdventureWorks database. My full backup of AdventureWorks database is at e:\AW.bak */ SELECT @dbName = 'AdventureWorks', @schemaName = 'Production', @tableName = 'Product1', @fullBackupName = 'e:\AW.bak', @undeletedTableName = '##' + @tableName + '_Undeleted', @tableWasTruncated = 0, -- copy the structure from original table to a temp table that we'll fill with restored data @sql = 'IF OBJECT_ID(''tempdb..' + @undeletedTableName + ''') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE ' + @undeletedTableName + ' SELECT *' + ' INTO ' + @undeletedTableName + ' FROM [' + @dbName + '].[' + @schemaName + '].[' + @tableName + ']' + ' WHERE 1 = 0' EXEC (@sql) IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#PagesToRestore') IS NOT NULL DROP TABLE #PagesToRestore /* FIND DATA PAGES WE NEED TO RESTORE*/ CREATE TABLE #PagesToRestore ([ID] INT IDENTITY(1,1), [FileID] INT, [PageID] INT, [SQLtoExec] VARCHAR(1000)) -- DBCC PACE statement to run later RAISERROR ('Looking for deleted pages...', 10, 1) -- use T-LOG direct read to get deleted data pages INSERT INTO #PagesToRestore([FileID], [PageID], [SQLtoExec]) EXEC('USE [' + @dbName + '];SELECT FileID, PageID, ''DBCC TRACEON (3604); DBCC PAGE ([' + @dbName + '], '' + FileID + '', '' + PageID + '', 3) WITH TABLERESULTS'' as SQLToExecFROM (SELECT DISTINCT LEFT([Page ID], 4) AS FileID, CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), ' + 'CONVERT(INT, master.dbo.HexStrToVarBin(SUBSTRING([Page ID], 6, 20)))) AS PageIDFROM sys.fn_dblog(NULL, NULL)WHERE AllocUnitName LIKE ''%' + @schemaName + '.' + @tableName + '%'' ' + 'AND Context IN (''LCX_MARK_AS_GHOST'', ''LCX_HEAP'') AND Operation in (''LOP_DELETE_ROWS''))t');SELECT *FROM #PagesToRestore -- if upper EXEC returns 0 rows it means the table was truncated so find truncated pages IF (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM #PagesToRestore) = 0 BEGIN RAISERROR ('No deleted pages found. Looking for truncated pages...', 10, 1) -- use T-LOG read to get truncated data pages INSERT INTO #PagesToRestore([FileID], [PageID], [SQLtoExec]) -- dark magic happens here -- because truncation simply deallocates pages we have to find out which pages were deallocated. -- we can find this out by looking at the PFS page row's Description column. -- for every deallocated extent the Description has a CSV of 8 pages in that extent. -- then it's just a matter of parsing it. -- we also remove the pages in the extent that weren't allocated to the table itself -- marked with '0x00-->00' EXEC ('USE [' + @dbName + '];DECLARE @truncatedPages TABLE(DeallocatedPages VARCHAR(8000), IsMultipleDeallocs BIT);INSERT INTO @truncatedPagesSELECT REPLACE(REPLACE(Description, ''Deallocated '', ''Y''), ''0x00-->00 '', ''N'') + '';'' AS DeallocatedPages, CHARINDEX('';'', Description) AS IsMultipleDeallocsFROM (SELECT DISTINCT LEFT([Page ID], 4) AS FileID, CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), CONVERT(INT, master.dbo.HexStrToVarBin(SUBSTRING([Page ID], 6, 20)))) AS PageID, DescriptionFROM sys.fn_dblog(NULL, NULL)WHERE Context IN (''LCX_PFS'') AND Description LIKE ''Deallocated%'' AND AllocUnitName LIKE ''%' + @schemaName + '.' + @tableName + '%'') t;SELECT FileID, PageID , ''DBCC TRACEON (3604); DBCC PAGE ([' + @dbName + '], '' + FileID + '', '' + PageID + '', 3) WITH TABLERESULTS'' as SQLToExecFROM (SELECT LEFT(PageAndFile, 1) as WasPageAllocatedToTable , SUBSTRING(PageAndFile, 2, CHARINDEX('':'', PageAndFile) - 2 ) as FileID , CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), CONVERT(INT, master.dbo.HexStrToVarBin(SUBSTRING(PageAndFile, CHARINDEX('':'', PageAndFile) + 1, LEN(PageAndFile))))) as PageIDFROM ( SELECT SUBSTRING(DeallocatedPages, delimPosStart, delimPosEnd - delimPosStart) as PageAndFile, IsMultipleDeallocs FROM ( SELECT *, CHARINDEX('';'', DeallocatedPages)*(N-1) + 1 AS delimPosStart, CHARINDEX('';'', DeallocatedPages)*N AS delimPosEnd FROM @truncatedPages t1 CROSS APPLY (SELECT TOP (case when t1.IsMultipleDeallocs = 1 then 8 else 1 end) ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY number) as N FROM master..spt_values) t2 )t)t)tWHERE WasPageAllocatedToTable = ''Y''') SELECT @tableWasTruncated = 1 END DECLARE @lastID INT, @pagesCount INT SELECT @lastID = 1, @pagesCount = COUNT(*) FROM #PagesToRestore SELECT @sql = 'Number of pages to restore: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @pagesCount) IF @pagesCount = 0 RAISERROR ('No data pages to restore.', 18, 1) ELSE RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) -- If the table was truncated we'll read the data directly from data pages without restoring from backup IF @tableWasTruncated = 0 BEGIN -- RESTORE DATA PAGES FROM FULL BACKUP IN BATCHES OF 200 WHILE @lastID <= @pagesCount BEGIN -- create CSV string of pages to restore SELECT @sql = STUFF((SELECT ',' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), FileID) + ':' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(100), PageID) FROM #PagesToRestore WHERE ID BETWEEN @lastID AND @lastID + 200 ORDER BY ID FOR XML PATH('')), 1, 1, '') SELECT @sql = 'RESTORE DATABASE [' + @dbName + '] PAGE = ''' + @sql + ''' FROM DISK = ''' + @fullBackupName + '''' RAISERROR ('Starting RESTORE command:' , 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; RAISERROR (@sql , 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; EXEC(@sql); RAISERROR ('Restore DONE' , 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; SELECT @lastID = @lastID + 200 END /* If you have any differential or transaction log backups you should restore them here to bring the previously restored data pages up to date */ END DECLARE @dbccSinglePage TABLE ( [ParentObject] NVARCHAR(500), [Object] NVARCHAR(500), [Field] NVARCHAR(500), [VALUE] NVARCHAR(MAX) ) DECLARE @cols NVARCHAR(MAX), @paramDefinition NVARCHAR(500), @SQLtoExec VARCHAR(1000), @FileID VARCHAR(100), @PageID VARCHAR(100), @i INT = 1 -- Get deleted table columns from information_schema view -- Need sp_executeSQL because database name can't be passed in as variable SELECT @cols = 'select @cols = STUFF((SELECT '', ['' + COLUMN_NAME + '']''FROM ' + @dbName + '.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNSWHERE TABLE_NAME = ''' + @tableName + ''' AND TABLE_SCHEMA = ''' + @schemaName + '''ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITIONFOR XML PATH('''')), 1, 2, '''')', @paramDefinition = N'@cols nvarchar(max) OUTPUT' EXECUTE sp_executesql @cols, @paramDefinition, @cols = @cols OUTPUT -- Loop through all the restored data pages, -- read data from them and insert them into temp table -- which you can then insert into the orignial deleted table DECLARE dbccPageCursor CURSOR GLOBAL FORWARD_ONLY FOR SELECT [FileID], [PageID], [SQLtoExec] FROM #PagesToRestore ORDER BY [FileID], [PageID] OPEN dbccPageCursor; FETCH NEXT FROM dbccPageCursor INTO @FileID, @PageID, @SQLtoExec; WHILE @@FETCH_STATUS = 0 BEGIN RAISERROR ('---------------------------------------------', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; SELECT @sql = 'Loop iteration: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @i); RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; SELECT @sql = 'Running: ' + @SQLtoExec RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; -- if something goes wrong with DBCC execution or data gathering, skip it but print error BEGIN TRY INSERT INTO @dbccSinglePage EXEC (@SQLtoExec) -- make the data insert magic happen here IF (SELECT CONVERT(BIGINT, [VALUE]) FROM @dbccSinglePage WHERE [Field] LIKE '%Metadata: ObjectId%') = OBJECT_ID('['+@dbName+'].['+@schemaName +'].['+@tableName+']') BEGIN DELETE @dbccSinglePage WHERE NOT ([ParentObject] LIKE 'Slot % Offset %' AND [Object] LIKE 'Slot % Column %') SELECT @sql = 'USE tempdb; ' + 'IF (OBJECTPROPERTY(object_id(''' + @undeletedTableName + '''), ''TableHasIdentity'') = 1) ' + 'SET IDENTITY_INSERT ' + @undeletedTableName + ' ON; ' + 'INSERT INTO ' + @undeletedTableName + '(' + @cols + ') ' + STUFF((SELECT ' UNION ALL SELECT ' + STUFF((SELECT ', ' + CASE WHEN VALUE = '[NULL]' THEN 'NULL' ELSE '''' + [VALUE] + '''' END FROM ( -- the unicorn help here to correctly set ordinal numbers of columns in a data page -- it's turning STRING order into INT order (1,10,11,2,21 into 1,2,..10,11...21) SELECT [ParentObject], [Object], Field, VALUE, RIGHT('00000' + O1, 6) AS ParentObjectOrder, RIGHT('00000' + REVERSE(LEFT(O2, CHARINDEX(' ', O2)-1)), 6) AS ObjectOrder FROM ( SELECT [ParentObject], [Object], Field, VALUE, REPLACE(LEFT([ParentObject], CHARINDEX('Offset', [ParentObject])-1), 'Slot ', '') AS O1, REVERSE(LEFT([Object], CHARINDEX('Offset ', [Object])-2)) AS O2 FROM @dbccSinglePage WHERE t.ParentObject = ParentObject )t)t ORDER BY ParentObjectOrder, ObjectOrder FOR XML PATH('')), 1, 2, '') FROM @dbccSinglePage t GROUP BY ParentObject FOR XML PATH('') ), 1, 11, '') + ';' RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; EXEC (@sql) END END TRY BEGIN CATCH SELECT @sql = 'ERROR!!!' + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13) + 'ErrorNumber: ' + ERROR_NUMBER() + '; ErrorMessage' + ERROR_MESSAGE() + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13) + 'FileID: ' + @FileID + '; PageID: ' + @PageID RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; END CATCH DELETE @dbccSinglePage SELECT @sql = 'Pages left to process: ' + CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), @pagesCount - @i) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + CHAR(13), @i = @i+1 RAISERROR (@sql, 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; FETCH NEXT FROM dbccPageCursor INTO @FileID, @PageID, @SQLtoExec; END CLOSE dbccPageCursor; DEALLOCATE dbccPageCursor; EXEC ('SELECT ''' + @undeletedTableName + ''' as TableName; SELECT * FROM ' + @undeletedTableName)END TRYBEGIN CATCH SELECT ERROR_NUMBER() AS ErrorNumber, ERROR_MESSAGE() AS ErrorMessage IF CURSOR_STATUS ('global', 'dbccPageCursor') >= 0 BEGIN CLOSE dbccPageCursor; DEALLOCATE dbccPageCursor; ENDEND CATCH-- if the table was deleted we need to finish the restore page sequenceIF @tableWasTruncated = 0BEGIN -- take a log tail backup and then restore it to complete page restore process DECLARE @currentDate VARCHAR(30) SELECT @currentDate = CONVERT(VARCHAR(30), GETDATE(), 112) RAISERROR ('Starting Log Tail backup to c:\Temp ...', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; PRINT ('BACKUP LOG [' + @dbName + '] TO DISK = ''c:\Temp\' + @dbName + '_TailLogBackup_' + @currentDate + '.trn''') EXEC ('BACKUP LOG [' + @dbName + '] TO DISK = ''c:\Temp\' + @dbName + '_TailLogBackup_' + @currentDate + '.trn''') RAISERROR ('Log Tail backup done.', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; RAISERROR ('Starting Log Tail restore from c:\Temp ...', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT; PRINT ('RESTORE LOG [' + @dbName + '] FROM DISK = ''c:\Temp\' + @dbName + '_TailLogBackup_' + @currentDate + '.trn''') EXEC ('RESTORE LOG [' + @dbName + '] FROM DISK = ''c:\Temp\' + @dbName + '_TailLogBackup_' + @currentDate + '.trn''') RAISERROR ('Log Tail restore done.', 10, 1) WITH NOWAIT;END-- The last step is manual. Insert data from our temporary table to the original deleted table The misconception here is that you can do a single table restore properly in SQL Server. You can't. But with little experimentation you can get pretty close to it. One way to possible remove a dependency on a backup to retrieve deleted pages is to quickly run a similar script to the upper one that gets data directly from data pages while the rows are still marked as ghost records. It could be done if we could beat the ghost record cleanup task.

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  • Troubleshooting Windows Blue Screen Errors

    The so-called ‘Blue Screen of Death’ has inspired fear in the hearts of mere mortals, but Systems Administrators are expected be capable of casually beating back this sinister beast. So imagine Ben Lye’s distress when he discovered that many aspiring SysAdmins had no structured approach to tackling the root of the problem. Setting out to remedy the situation, Ben lays out a simple 3-step plan, and dispenses some good advice.

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  • .Net Debugging? Don’t give me none of your VS

    Visual Studio is fine for most debugging purposes. Just occasionally, it isn't practicable, or there are other quicker ways of doing it with a user-mode debugger. Edward argues that debugging in MSIL or assembly language is a strangely liberating experience and can be a lightweight route to discovering the cause of elusive bugs. He starts off with a simple introduction to SOS debugging.

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  • How to Create Custom SharePoint Workflows in Visual Studio 2008

    Whereas simple workflows are possible using Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, you will soon reach the point where you will need to use Visual Studio. In the third article in Charles' introduction to Workflows in Sharepoint, he demonstrates how to create a workflow from scratch using Visual Studio, and discusses the relative merits of the two tools for this sort of development work.

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  • TSQL formatting - a sure fire way to start a conversation.

    - by fatherjack
    There are probably as many opinions on ways to format code as there are people writing code and I am not here to say that any one is better than any other. Well, that isn't true. I am here to say that one way is better than another but this isn't a matter of preference or personal taste, this is an example of where sloppy formatting can cause TSQL to weird and whacky things but following some simple methods can make your code more reliable and more robust when . Take these two pieces of code, ready...(read more)

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  • Procedural, Semi-Procedural and Declarative Programming in SQL

    A lot of the time, the key to making SQL databases perform well is to take a break from the keyboard and rethink the way of approaching the problem; and rethinking in terms of a set-based declarative approach. Joe takes a simple discussion abut a problem with a UDF to illustrate the point that ingrained procedural reflexes can often prevent us from seeing simpler set-based techniques.

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  • Mutation Testing

    You may have a twinge of doubt when your code passes all its unit tests. They might say that the code is OK, but if the code is definitely incorrect, will the unit tests fail? Mutation Testing is a relatively simple, but ingenious, way of checking that your tests will spot the fact that your code is malfunctioning. It is definitely something that every developer should be aware of.

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  • Adding a KPI to an SQL Server Analysis Services Cube

    Key Performance Indicators, which vary according to the application, are widely used as a measure of the performance of parts of an organisation. Analysis Services makes this KPI data easily available to your cube. All you have to do is to follow Rob Sheldon's simple instructions.

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  • A Look at Exceptions in .NET Applications

    Memory dumps are a wonderful way of finding out what caused an exception in a managed .NET application, particularly if it is happening in a production application. It is when tracking exceptions in applications where you can't use Visual Studio that the techniques of using cdb and sos.dll come into their own. They may nor be skills that you need to use regularly, but at some point, they will be invaluable. Edward supplies sample memory dumps and gives you a simple introduction.

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