Search Results

Search found 351 results on 15 pages for 'reddit'.

Page 9/15 | < Previous Page | 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  | Next Page >

• Combining Code Review with Trust Metrics

  - by DragonFax

  I don't get the chance to partake of it at work. But I love the idea of code review. Especially of online open source code review like Gerrit Code Review. I love what Trust Metrics have done for forums and collective intelligences sites on the internet like stackexchange, reddit, and wikipedia. Would it be possible to combine the two and come up with an open source project management system. Something that ends up being mostly community driven. Perhaps a kind of wikipedia of code for a project. Where submitters become popular/trusted by having lots of patches reviewed favoriably by others, and accepted into the trunk. And popular/trusted submitters get their patchs accepted faster/easier. I'm looking for some opinions on the idea, or perhaps pointers to where its been done before, if thats the case. This might leave the lead maintiner little more to do than: wrangle the direction of the project by fast-tracking or vetoing specific patches. settling disputes when the CI tests break, or fixing it himself. Is design by community worse than design by committee?

  Read the article

• Use Those Schemas, People!

  - by BuckWoody

  Database Schemas are just containers – they aren’t users or anything else – think of a sub-directory on the hard drive. In early versions of SQL Server we “hid” schemas, placing all objects under “dbo”, which gave the erroneous perception that Schemas are users. In SQL Server 2005, we “un-hid” or re-introduced schemas within the database. Users can have a default schema (a place where their new objects go), you can add new schemas and transfer objects between them, and they have many other benefits. But I still see a lot of applications, developed by shops I know as well as vendors, that don’t make use of a Schema. Everything is piled under dbo. I completely understand this – since permissions can be granted to a schema, they feel a lot like a user, so it’s just easier not to worry about both users and schemas when you create a database. But if you’ll use them properly you can make your application more understandable and portable. You should at least take a few minutes and read more about them – you owe it to your users: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190387.aspx Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Backup those keys, citizen

  - by BuckWoody

  Periodically I back up the keys within my servers and databases, and when I do, I blog a reminder here. This should be part of your standard backup rotation – the keys should be backed up often enough to have at hand and again when they change. The first key you need to back up is the Service Master Key, which each Instance already has built-in. You do that with the BACKUP SERVICE MASTER KEY command, which you can read more about here. The second set of keys are the Database Master Keys, stored per database, if you’ve created one. You can back those up with the BACKUP MASTER KEY command, which you can read more about here. Finally, you can use the keys to create certificates and other keys – those should also be backed up. Read more about those here. Anyway, the important part here is the backup. Make sure you keep those keys safe! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• SQL Server 2008 R2: These are a Few of My Favorite Things

  - by smisner

  This month's T-SQL Tuesday is hosted by Jorge Segarra (blog | twitter) who decided that we should write about our favorite new feature in SQL Server 2008 R2. The majority of my published works concentrates on Reporting Services, so the obious answer for me is about favorite new features is...Reporting Services. I can't pick just one thing in Reporting Services, so instead I thought I'd compile a list of my posts of the new features in Reporting Services 2008 R2: Map Wizard for spatial data (The World is But a Stage) Pagination features (I've Got Your Page Number) Lookup functions (Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around - Part I, Part II, Part III) Test Connection button (Testing, Testing 1-2-3) Conditional formatting based on format, i.e. RenderFormat (As You Like It) And I wrote an overview of the business intelligence features in SQL Server 2008 R2 for Microsoft Press in the free e-book, Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, if you're curious about what else is new in both the BI platform as well as the relational engine. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Great Example of a Simple Cost-Benefit Analysis

  - by BuckWoody

  I saw a post the other day that you should definitely go check out. It’s a cost/benefit decision, and although the author gives it a quick treatment and doesn’t take all points in the decision into account, you should focus on the process he follows. It’s a quick and simple example of the kind of thought process we should have as data professionals when we pick a server, a process, or application and even platform software. The key is to include more than just the price of a piece of software or hardware. You need to think about the “other” costs in the decision, and then make the right one. Sometimes the cheapest option is the cheapest, and other times, well, it isn’t. I’ve seen this played out not only in the decision to go with a certain selection, but in the options or editions it comes in. You have to put all of the decision points in the analysis to come up with the right answer, and you have to be able to explain your logic to your team and your company. This is the way you become a data professional, not just a DBA. You can check out the post here – it deals with Azure, but the point is the process, not Azure itself: http://blogs.msdn.com/eugeniop/archive/2010/03/19/windows-azure-guidance-a-simplistic-economic-analysis-of-a-expense-migration.aspx Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• More Tables or More Databases?

  - by BuckWoody

  I got an e-mail from someone that has an interesting situation. He has 15,000 customers, and he asks if he should have a database for their data per customer. Without a LOT more data it’s impossible to say, of course, but there are some general concepts to keep in mind. Whenever you’re segmenting data, it’s all about boundary choices. You have not only boundaries around how big the data will get, but things like how many objects (tables, stored procedures and so on) that will be involved, if there are any cross-sections of data (do they share location or product information) and – very important – what are the security requirements? From the answer to these types of questions, you now have the choice of making multiple tables in a single database, or using multiple databases. A database carries some overhead – it needs a certain amount of memory for locking and so on. But it has a very clean boundary – everything from objects to security can be kept apart. Having multiple users in the same database is possible as well, using things like a Schema. But keeping 15,000 schemas can be challenging as well. My recommendation in complex situations like this is similar to a post on decisions that I did earlier – I lay out the choices on a spreadsheet in rows, and then my requirements at the top in the columns. I  give each choice a number based on how well it meets each requirement. At the end, the highest number wins. And many times it’s a mix – perhaps this person could segment customers into larger regions or districts or products, in a database. Within that database might be multiple schemas for the customers. Of course, he needs to query across all customers, that becomes another requirement. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• What is your most preferred method of site pagination?

  - by John Smith

  There seem to be quite a few implementations of this feature. Some sites like like Stackexchange have it laid out like this: [1][2][3][4][5] ... [954][Next] Other sites like game forums may have something like this: [1][2][3] ... [10] ... [50] ... [500] ... [954][Next] Some sites like webcomics (XKCD comes to mind) have it laid out like this: [Last][Prev][Random][Next][First] Reddit has a very simple pagination with only: [Prev][Next] Sites like Stackexchange and Google also allow you to change how many results you want per page. Personally, I have never used this feature. Is it even worth including or does it just further confuse the design with needless features? Personally, I have only ever seen the need for the webcomic style (without the random). If I need to go to a specific page (which is very, very rare) then I can just edit the address bar. Is it good design to make something more complex for rare occasions where it might make save the user some time? Is having to edit the address bar to navigate the site effectively in some circumstances bad design?

  Read the article

• Observable Adapter

  - by Roman Schindlauer

  .NET 4.0 introduced a pair of interfaces, IObservable<T> and IObserver<T>, supporting subscriptions to and notifications for push-based sequences. In combination with Reactive Extensions (Rx), these interfaces provide a convenient and uniform way of describing event sources and sinks in .NET. The StreamInsight CTP refresh in November 2009 included an Observable adapter supporting “reactive” event inputs and outputs.   While we continue to believe it enables an important programming model, the Observable adapter was not included in the final (RTM) release of Microsoft StreamInsight 1.0. The release takes a dependency on .NET 3.5 but for timing reasons could not take a dependency on .NET 4.0. Shipping a separate copy of the observable interfaces in StreamInsight – as we did in the CTP refresh – was not a viable option in the RTM release.   Within the next months, we will be shipping another preview of the Observable adapter that targets .NET 4.0. We look forward to gathering your feedback on the new adapter design! We plan to include the Observable adapter implementation into the product in a future release of Microsoft StreamInsight. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• With Choice Comes Complexity

  - by BuckWoody

  "Complex" may be defined as "Having many steps, details or parts." Many of Microsoft's products, including SQL Server, can be complex. I'm stating what most data professionals already know - there's usually multiple ways to do things in SQL Server. For instance, to import some data into a table you can use graphical tools, SQLCMD, bcp, SQL Server Integration Services, BULK INSERT, even PowerShell, just to name a few tools at your disposal. That's really not the issue, though. The bigger issue is that there are normally multiple thought-processes, or methods, that you have available for a task. That's both a strength and a weakness. If things were more simple, you would have fewer choices. Sometimes that's a good thing. Just tell me what I need to do and I'll do it. However, your particular situation may not fit that tool or process, so having more options increases your ability to get your job done the way you need to do it. On the other hand, that's more for you to learn, which is harder. There's another side of this benefit/difficulty that you need to be aware of. Even if you're quite good at what you do, keep in mind that the way you know how to do something may not be the only way to do it. Keep your mind open to new possibilities, and most importantly - to new knowledge. SQL Server professionals teach me something new every day. So embrace the complexity - on balance, it's a good thing! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, October 14, 2013

  CodePlex Daily Summary for Monday, October 14, 2013Popular ReleasesAD ACL Scanner: 1.3.2: Minor bug fixed: Powershell 4.0 will report: Select—Object: Parameter cannot be processed because the parameter name p is ambiguous.Json.NET: Json.NET 5.0 Release 7: New feature - Added support for Immutable Collections New feature - Added WriteData and ReadData settings to DataExtensionAttribute New feature - Added reference and type name handling support to extension data New feature - Added default value and required support to constructor deserialization Change - Extension data is now written when serializing Fix - Added missing casts to JToken Fix - Fixed parsing large floating point numbers Fix - Fixed not parsing some ISO date ...Fast YouTube Downloader: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0: YouTube Downloader 2.2.0VidCoder: 1.5.8 Beta: Added hardware acceleration options: Bicubic OpenCL scaling algorithm, QSV decoding/encoding and DXVA decoding. Updated HandBrake core to SVN 5834. Updated VidCoder setup icon. Fixed crash when choosing the mp4v2 container on x86 and opening on x64. Warning: the hardware acceleration features require specific hardware or file types to work correctly: QSV: Need an Intel processor that supports Quick Sync Video encoding, with a monitor hooked up to the Intel HD Graphics output and the lat...ASP.net MVC Awesome - jQuery Ajax Helpers: 3.5.2: version 3.5.2 - fix for setting single value to multivalue controls - datepicker min max date offset fix - html encoding for keys fix - enable Column.ClientFormatFunc to be a function call that will return a function version 3.5.1 - fixed html attributes rendering - fixed loading animation rendering - css improvements version 3.5 ========================== - autosize for all popups ( can be turned off by calling in js awe.autoSize = false ) - added Parent, Paremeter extensions ...Coevery - Free ASP.NET CRM: Coevery_WebApp: it just for publish to microsoft web app gellaryWsus Package Publisher: Release v1.3.1310.12: Allow the Update Creation Wizard to be set in full screen mode. Fix a bug which prevent WPP to Reset Remote Sus Client ID. Change the behavior of links in the Update Detail Viewer. Left-Click to open, Right-Click to copy to the Clipboard.TerrariViewer: TerrariViewer v7 [Terraria Inventory Editor]: This is a complete overhaul but has the same core style. I hope you enjoy it. This version is compatible with 1.2.0.3 Please send issues to my Twitter or https://github.com/TJChap2840WDTVHubGen - Adds Metadata, thumbnails and subtitles to WDTV Live Hubs: WDTVHubGen.v2.1.6.maint: I think this covers all of the issues. new additions: fixed the thumbnail problem for backgrounds. general clean up and error checking. need to get this put through the wringer and all feedback is welcome.BIDS Helper: BIDS Helper 1.6.4: This BIDS Helper release brings the following new features and fixes: New Features: A new Bus Matrix style report option when you run the Printer Friendly Dimension Usage report for an SSAS cube. The Biml engine is now fully in sync with the supported subset of Varigence Mist 3.4. This includes a large number of language enhancements, bugfixes, and project deployment support. Fixed Issues: Fixed Biml execution for project connections fixing a bug with Tabular Translations Editor not a...Free language translator and file converter: Free Language Translator 3.4: fixe for new version look up.MoreTerra (Terraria World Viewer): MoreTerra 1.11.3: =========== =New Features= =========== New Markers added for Plantera's Bulb, Heart Fruits and Gold Cache. Markers now correctly display for the gems found in rock debris on the floor. =========== =Compatibility= =========== Fixed header changes found in Terraria 1.0.3.1Dynamics AX 2012 R2 Kitting: First Beta release of Kitting: First Beta release of Kitting Install by using XPO or Models.C# Intellisense for Notepad++: Release v1.0.8.0: - fixed document formatting artifacts To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.CS-Script for Notepad++ (C# intellisense and code execution): Release v1.0.8.0: - fixed document formatting artifacts To avoid the DLLs getting locked by OS use MSI file for the installation.Generic Unit of Work and Repositories Framework: v2.0: Async methods for Repostiories - Ivan (@ifarkas) OData Async - Ivan (@ifarkas) Glimpse MVC4 workig with MVC5 Glimpse EF6 Northwind.Repostiory Project (layer) best practices for extending the Repositories Northwind.Services Project (layer), best practices for implementing business facade Live Demo: http://longle.azurewebsites.net/Spa/Product#/list Documentation: http://blog.longle.net/2013/10/09/upgrading-to-async-with-entity-framework-mvc-odata-asyncentitysetcontroller-kendo-ui-gli...Media Companion: Media Companion MC3.581b: Fix in place for TVDB xml issue. New* Movie - General Preferences, allow saving of ignored 'The' or 'A' to end of movie title, stored in sorttitle field. * Movie - New Way for Cropping Posters. Fixed* Movie - Rename of folders/filename. caught error message. * Movie - Fixed Bug in Save Cropped image, only saving in Pre-Frodo format if Both model selected. * Movie - Fixed Cropped image didn't take zoomed ratio into effect. * Movie - Separated Folder Renaming and File Renaming fuctions durin...(Party) DJ Player: DJP.124.12: 124.12 (Feature implementation completed): Changed datatype of HistoryDateInfo from string to DateTime New: HistoryDateInfoConverter for the listbox Improved: HistoryDateInfoDeleter, HistoryDateInfoLoader, HistoryDateInfoAsynchronizer, HistoryItemLoader, HistoryItemsToHistoryDateInfoConverterSmartStore.NET - Free ASP.NET MVC Ecommerce Shopping Cart Solution: SmartStore.NET 1.2.0: HighlightsMulti-store support "Trusted Shops" plugins Highly improved SmartStore.biz Importer plugin Add custom HTML content to pages Performance optimization New FeaturesMulti-store-support: now multiple stores can be managed within a single application instance (e.g. for building different catalogs, brands, landing pages etc.) Added 3 new Trusted Shops plugins: Seal, Buyer Protection, Store Reviews Added Display as HTML Widget to CMS Topics (store owner now can add arbitrary HT...NuGet: NuGet 2.7.1: Released October 07, 2013. Release notes: http://docs.nuget.org/docs/release-notes/nuget-2.7.1 Important note: After downloading the signed build of NuGet.exe, if you perform an update using the "nuget.exe update -self" command, it will revert back to the unsigned build.New Projectsaigiongai: aigiongaiArtificial LIfe BEing - ALIBE: An Autonomous Arduino Robot based on a 4 wheel electric RC style vehicle equipped w/ various sensors and reactionary devices powered by Arduino Mega. BH Auto-injector: This ia a BH hack injector developed for r/SlashDiablo. For more information visit: http://www.reddit.com/r/slashdiablo BloxServer: A server for a game currently in DevBugNet Premium: BugNet Premium is extended version of open source defect tracking tool BugNetCASP Editor: CASP Editor hosted at SimlogicalGrace: Grace is an Dependency Injection Container as well as a couple other services like Data Transformation Service, Validation Service, and Reflection Service.Halogy v1.2 CE1.0: Halogy v1.2 Community Edition v1.0Hot Likes: Simple web Application Like Facebook and TwitterHyper-V Backup.NET: TestIndexedList: This library helps you to create lists with large amount of data and do high speed searches on your data. Kinect Skeleton Stream to BVH Converter: The program converts the skeleton data stream into BVH.Mama Goose's Birthday & Anniversary Calendar: This is a simple calendar that allows entering birthdays and anniversaries and to print the calendar for the year or month.MQL to FDK converter with migration toolkit: "MQL to FDK" project provides an easy and convenient way for conversion of MQL advisers to C# and launching them on FDK.Produzr: Produzr is a very simple CMS without a high learning curve.PSWFWeb - PowerShell Workflow WebConsole: A PSWorkflow job managersacm: naSave Cleaner: Sims 3 save cleanerSimple AES file appender: Simple AES file appenderSims 3 Package Viewer: Sims 3 ProjectsxBot Framework: xBot Framework is a dot Net framework for building a bot for use with Reddit.com.

  Read the article

• Data Movement and the Decision Matrix

  - by BuckWoody

  Maybe it’s my military background, or maybe I’ve always had this predilection, but I like to use two devices when I need to make a complex decision: A checklist and a decision matrix. I like to use a checklist because it ensures that I remember the big bits of what I need to do, and brings up questions or areas that I didn’t think about when evaluating options for the decision. And the decision matrix – that’s the thing I use to actually lay out those options. It’s simply a spreadsheet-like grid (I use Excel, but paper and pencil works as well) that lays out the requirements or advantages for the decision across the top, and the options I have on the left-hand side. Then in the “cells” I put whether or not that option on the left will meet the requirement in that column. I then simply “weight” each cell to organize the choices by best-fit. The right answer (or answers) will float right to the top. I was asked yesterday about options for moving data in SQL Server to another system. There are just dozens of ways to do this, from bcp to Replication, each with certain advantages and costs. But asking the questions for the top row first helped me show the person that it isn’t a particular technology that is important, it’s laying out those requirements and thinking about which elements are more important than the other. For instance, is it more important to have the data moved all the time, or is it OK if that happens once in a while? Does the data have to move in two directions or just one? All of these will help that answer jump right out. Try it sometime – it’s a great learning exercise, since it will force you to focus on filling out the matrix. The answer is out there, Neo. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• More than one way to skin an Audit

  - by BuckWoody

  I get asked quite a bit about auditing in SQL Server. By "audit", people mean everything from tracking logins to finding out exactly who ran a particular SELECT statement. In the really early versions of SQL Server, we didn't have a great story for very granular audits, so lots of workarounds were suggested. As time progressed, more and more audit capabilities were added to the product, and in typical database platform fashion, as we added a feature we didn't often take the others away. So now, instead of not having an option to audit actions by users, you might face the opposite problem - too many ways to audit! You can read more about the options you have for tracking users here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280526(v=SQL.100).aspx  In SQL Server 2008, we introduced SQL Server Audit, which uses Extended Events to really get a simple way to implement high-level or granular auditing. You can read more about that here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd392015.aspx  As with any feature, you should understand what your needs are first. Auditing isn't "free" in the performance sense, so you need to make sure you're only auditing what you need to. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• TechEd 2010 Day Four: Learning how to help others learn

  - by BuckWoody

  I do quite a few presentations, and teach at the University of Washington, and also teach other classes. But I'm always learning from others how to help others learn. At events like TechEd I have access to some of the best speakers around, so I try to find out what they do that works. I attended a great session by allen White, in which he demonstrated a set of PowerShell scripts. He said that Dan Jones of the Microsoft Manageability team told him while he demonstrated a script he needed to provide some visual way to represent the process. Allen used one of the oldest visualizations around - a flowchart. It was the first time I'd seen one used to illustrate a PowerShell script, and it was very effective. I'm totally stealing the idea. All of us are teachers - we help others on our team understand what we're up to. Make sure you make notes for what you find effective in dealing with you, and then meld that into your own way of teaching. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Why isn't there a typeclass for functions?

  - by Steve314

  I already tried this on Reddit, but there's no sign of a response - maybe it's the wrong place, maybe I'm too impatient. Anyway... In a learning problem I've been messing around with, I realised I needed a typeclass for functions with operations for applying, composing etc. Reasons... It can be convenient to treat a representation of a function as if it were the function itself, so that applying the function implicitly uses an interpreter, and composing functions derives a new description. Once you have a typeclass for functions, you can have derived typeclasses for special kinds of functions - in my case, I want invertible functions. For example, functions that apply integer offsets could be represented by an ADT containing an integer. Applying those functions just means adding the integer. Composition is implemented by adding the wrapped integers. The inverse function has the integer negated. The identity function wraps zero. The constant function cannot be provided because there's no suitable representation for it. Of course it doesn't need to spell things as if it the values were genuine Haskell functions, but once I had the idea, I thought a library like that must already exist and maybe even using the standard spellings. But I can't find such a typeclass in the Haskell library. I found the Data.Function module, but there's no typeclass - just some common functions that are also available from the Prelude. So - why isn't there a typeclass for functions? Is it "just because there isn't" or "because it's not so useful as you think"? Or maybe there's a fundamental problem with the idea? The biggest possible problem I've thought of so far is that function application on actual functions would probably have to be special-cased by the compiler to avoid a looping problem - in order to apply this function I need to apply the function application function, and to do that I need to call the function application function, and to do that...

  Read the article

• Never Bet Against the Impossible

  - by BuckWoody

  My uncle used to say “If a man tells you that his car squirts milk in his eye when you lift the hood, don’t bet against that. You’ll end up with milk in your eye.” My friend Allen White tells me this is taken from a play (and was said about playing cards), but I think the sentiment holds, even in database work. I mentioned the other day that you should allow the other person to talk and actively listen before you propose a solution. Well, I saw a consultant “bet against the impossible”  the other day – and it bit her. She explained to the person telling her the problem that the situation simply couldn’t exist that way, and he proceeded to show her that it did. She got silent, typed a few things, muttered a little, and then said “well, must be something else.” She just couldn’t admit she was wrong. So don’t go there. If someone explains a problem to you with their database, listen with purpose, and then explore the troubleshooting steps you know to find the problem. But keep your absolutes to yourself. In fact, I have a friend that has recently sent me one of those. He connects to a system with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) version 2008 (if I recall correctly) and it shows a certain version number of the target system in the connection tab. Then he connects to it using SSMS 2008 R2 and gets a different number. Now, as far as I know, we didn’t change the connection string information, and that’s provided by the target system, so this is impossible. But I won’t tell him that. Not until I look a little more. :) Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Process Improvement and the Data Professional

  - by BuckWoody

  Don’t be afraid of that title – I’m not talking about Six Sigma or anything super-formal here. In many organizations, there are more folks in other IT roles than in the Data Professional area. In other words, there are more developers, system administrators and so on than there are the “DBA” role. That means we often have more to do than the time we need to do it. And, oddly enough, the first thing that is sacrificed is process improvement – the little things we need to do to make the day go faster in the first place. Then we get even more behind, the work piles up and…well, you know all about that. Earlier I challenged you to find 10-30 minutes a day to study. Some folks wrote back and asked “where do I start”? Well, why not be super-efficient and combine that time with learning how to make yourself more efficient? Try out a new scripting language, learn a new tool that automates things or find out ways others have automated their systems. In general, find out what you’re doing and how, and then see if that can be improved. It’s kind of like doing a performance tuning gig on yourself! If you’re pressed for time, look for bite-sized articles (like the ones I’ve done here for PowerShell and SQL Server) that you can follow in a “serial” fashion. In a short time you’ll have a new set of knowledge you can use to make your day faster. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• DevWeek & SQL Social @ London

  - by Davide Mauri

  Yesterday I had my “SQL Server best practices for developers” session at DevWeek and I really enjoyed it a lot. For all those who asked, I’ll put slides and demos online as soon as possible. I’ve just waiting to know where I can put it (on my website or somewhere else), so it should be just a matter of some days. If you attended my session and would like to rate it, please use SpeakerRate here: http://speakerrate.com/talks/2857-sql-server-best-practices-for-developers I also have to thank Simon Sabin for the very nice event he organized for SQLSocial http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/simons/archive/2010/02/16/SQLSocial-presents-Itzik-Ben-gan--Greg-Low-and-Davide-Mauri.aspx A lot of people attended and we really had interesting discussions. And it was my first time doing a session at a pub, and I must say it's *really* funny and enjoyable, expecially when you have free beer :-) Now back to Italy to the “usual” work! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• More than one way to skin an Audit

  - by BuckWoody

  I get asked quite a bit about auditing in SQL Server. By "audit", people mean everything from tracking logins to finding out exactly who ran a particular SELECT statement. In the really early versions of SQL Server, we didn't have a great story for very granular audits, so lots of workarounds were suggested. As time progressed, more and more audit capabilities were added to the product, and in typical database platform fashion, as we added a feature we didn't often take the others away. So now, instead of not having an option to audit actions by users, you might face the opposite problem - too many ways to audit! You can read more about the options you have for tracking users here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc280526(v=SQL.100).aspx  In SQL Server 2008, we introduced SQL Server Audit, which uses Extended Events to really get a simple way to implement high-level or granular auditing. You can read more about that here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd392015.aspx  As with any feature, you should understand what your needs are first. Auditing isn't "free" in the performance sense, so you need to make sure you're only auditing what you need to. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• TechEd 2010 Day Four: Learning how to help others learn

  - by BuckWoody

  I do quite a few presentations, and teach at the University of Washington, and also teach other classes. But I'm always learning from others how to help others learn. At events like TechEd I have access to some of the best speakers around, so I try to find out what they do that works. I attended a great session by allen White, in which he demonstrated a set of PowerShell scripts. He said that Dan Jones of the Microsoft Manageability team told him while he demonstrated a script he needed to provide some visual way to represent the process. Allen used one of the oldest visualizations around - a flowchart. It was the first time I'd seen one used to illustrate a PowerShell script, and it was very effective. I'm totally stealing the idea. All of us are teachers - we help others on our team understand what we're up to. Make sure you make notes for what you find effective in dealing with you, and then meld that into your own way of teaching. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• The SQL Server Setup Portal

  - by BuckWoody

  One of the tasks that takes a long time for the data professional is setting up SQL Server. No, it isn’t that difficult to slide a DVD in a drive and click “Setup” but the overall process of planning the hardware and software environment, making decisions for high-availability, security and dozens of other choices can make the process more difficult. And then, of course, there are the inevitable issues that arise. Microsoft supports literally hundreds and even thousands of combinations of hardware and software drivers from vendors you’ve never even heard of. Making all of that work together is a small miracle, so things are bound to arise that you need to deal with. So, to help you out, we’ve designed a new “SQL Server Setup Portal”. It’s a one-stop-shop for everything you need to know about planning and setting up SQL Server. As time goes on you’ll see even more content added. There are already whitepapers, videos, and multiple places to search on everything from topic names to error codes. So go check it out – and if you have to do a lot of SQL Server Setups – and especially if you don’t – bookmark it as a favorite! Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• I am not the most logically-organized person. Do I have any chance at being a good 'low-level' programmer?

  - by user217902

  Background: I am entering college next year. I really enjoy making stuff and solving logical problems, so I'm thinking of majoring in compsci and working in software development. I hope to have the kind of job where I can work with implementing / improving algorithms and data structures on a regular basis.. as opposed to, say, a job that's purely concerned with mashing different libraries together, or 'finding the right APIs for the job'. (Hence the word 'low-level' in the title. No, I don't wish to write assembly all day.) Thing is, I've never been the most logically-sharp person. Thus far I have only worked on hobby projects, but I find that I make the silliest of errors ever so often, and it can take me ages to find it. Like anywhere between three hours to a day to locate a simple segfault, off-by-one error, or other logical mistake. (Of course, I do other things in the meantime, like browsing SO, reddit, and the like..) It's not like I'm 'new' to programming either; I first tried C++ maybe five years ago. My question is: is this normal? Should a programmer with any talent solve it in less time? Having read Spolsky's Smart and gets things done, where he talks about the large variance in programming speed, am I near the bottom of the curve, and therefore destined to work in companies that cannot afford to hire quality programmers? I'd like to think that conceptually I'm okay -- I can grasp algorithms and concepts pretty well, I do fine in math and science, although I probably drop signs in my equations more often than the next guy. Still, grokking concepts makes me happy, and is the reason why I want to work with algorithms. I'm hoping to hear from those of you with real-world programming experience. TL;DR: I make many careless mistakes, should I not consider programming as a career?

  Read the article

• Never Bet Against the Impossible

  - by BuckWoody

  My uncle used to say “If a man tells you that his car squirts milk in his eye when you lift the hood, don’t bet against that. You’ll end up with milk in your eye.” My friend Allen White tells me this is taken from a play (and was said about playing cards), but I think the sentiment holds, even in database work. I mentioned the other day that you should allow the other person to talk and actively listen before you propose a solution. Well, I saw a consultant “bet against the impossible”  the other day – and it bit her. She explained to the person telling her the problem that the situation simply couldn’t exist that way, and he proceeded to show her that it did. She got silent, typed a few things, muttered a little, and then said “well, must be something else.” She just couldn’t admit she was wrong. So don’t go there. If someone explains a problem to you with their database, listen with purpose, and then explore the troubleshooting steps you know to find the problem. But keep your absolutes to yourself. In fact, I have a friend that has recently sent me one of those. He connects to a system with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) version 2008 (if I recall correctly) and it shows a certain version number of the target system in the connection tab. Then he connects to it using SSMS 2008 R2 and gets a different number. Now, as far as I know, we didn’t change the connection string information, and that’s provided by the target system, so this is impossible. But I won’t tell him that. Not until I look a little more. :) Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• More Tables or More Databases?

  - by BuckWoody

  I got an e-mail from someone that has an interesting situation. He has 15,000 customers, and he asks if he should have a database for their data per customer. Without a LOT more data it’s impossible to say, of course, but there are some general concepts to keep in mind. Whenever you’re segmenting data, it’s all about boundary choices. You have not only boundaries around how big the data will get, but things like how many objects (tables, stored procedures and so on) that will be involved, if there are any cross-sections of data (do they share location or product information) and – very important – what are the security requirements? From the answer to these types of questions, you now have the choice of making multiple tables in a single database, or using multiple databases. A database carries some overhead – it needs a certain amount of memory for locking and so on. But it has a very clean boundary – everything from objects to security can be kept apart. Having multiple users in the same database is possible as well, using things like a Schema. But keeping 15,000 schemas can be challenging as well. My recommendation in complex situations like this is similar to a post on decisions that I did earlier – I lay out the choices on a spreadsheet in rows, and then my requirements at the top in the columns. I  give each choice a number based on how well it meets each requirement. At the end, the highest number wins. And many times it’s a mix – perhaps this person could segment customers into larger regions or districts or products, in a database. Within that database might be multiple schemas for the customers. Of course, he needs to query across all customers, that becomes another requirement. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• QueryUnit 0.0.0.8 – Trust No One

  - by Davide Mauri

  Yesterday I’ve release an updated version of QueryUnit, the version 0.0.0.8. QueryUnit now supports AreNotEqual, Greater, and Less assertions and is more capable of managing strings results. I must say that I cannot live anymore without a proper Unit Testing of a BI solution. Just yesterday happened that one of the unit tests at a customer site failed showing a subtle situation where the release of a new version of custom application would have corrupted the source of BI data with a very low chance that someone would have noticed it before several days. It may happen when you have more the 15 systems that handles the data needed by your BI solution. The key message of this situation is “Trust No One”: if your data hasn’t passed quality testing it’s not trustable. Period. QueryUnit is now officialy an hero :) No superpowers still, but useful above all. http://queryunit.codeplex.com/ Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

• Seek first to understand, then to be understood

  - by BuckWoody

  One of the most important (and most difficult) lessons for a technical professional to learn is to not jump to the solution. Perhaps you’ve done this, or had it happen to you. As the person you’re “listening” to is speaking, your mind is performing a B-Tree lookup on possible solutions, and when the final node of the B-Tree in your mind is reached, you blurt out the “only” solution there is to the problem, whether they are done or not. There are two issues here – both of them fatal if you don’t factor them in. First, your B-Tree may not be complete, or correct. That of course leads to an incorrect response, which blows your credibility. People will not trust you if this happens often. The second danger is that the person may modify their entire problem with a single word or phrase. I once had a client explain a detailed problem to me – and I just KNEW the answer. Then they said at the end “well, that’s what it used to do, anyway. Now it doesn’t do that anymore.” Which of course negated my entire solution – happily I had kept my mouth shut until they finished. So practice listening, rather than waiting for your turn to speak. Let the person finish, let them get the concept out, give them your full attention. They’ll appreciate the courtesy, you’ll look more intelligent, and you both may find the right answer to the problem. Share this post: email it! | bookmark it! | digg it! | reddit! | kick it! | live it!

  Read the article

< Previous Page | 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15  | Next Page >