I haven't done a puzzle for a long time so I figured let's do a simple one. Return the right 6 characters of the column but without using the RIGHT function. Here is what the table looks like CREATE TABLE #Puzzle(SomeCol CHAR(7)) INSERT #Puzzl…

Recently, while working on a personal project, I found myself needing a lightweight way to deploy database changes to multiple environments. In the past I have used a wide range of methods, ranging from applying the changes manually to applying changes via a diff tool (SQL Compare), to automatically applying manually created change scripts, to automatically applying diff scripts that were automatically generated, to working directly in production..er, pretend you didn't see that one.

Today was a very sad day for me. I received news that a dear friend, Rose Waters @SQLRose, whom I had the pleasure of working with, passed away yesterday. Rose was an all-around great and very intelligent, hard working person. Her energy in wanting to l…

Today I was checking an older server and decided to run sp_helpdb. On a bunch of databases I noticed that the owner was ~~UNKNOWN~~. The only reason I noticed this was when I tried to look at a specific database which is mirrored. I was greeted with thi…

It’s the second Tuesday of the month, which means it’s time again for #TSQL2sday! It is the 42nd installment of this blog post series and the subject is not about the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything as I hoped it wo…

This blog posts explains how you can modify the data source of a Power View report published on SharePoint.

SQL Server baseline collection is an important task that is too frequently overlooked.  Collecting information on how SQL Server is both providing data services and reacting to how those data services are being utilized, creates a foundation for efficie…

This is one of those things that I only need once every several months and always forget how to do. Working with custom XML in Visual Studio is a whole lot easier with intellisense. Schema errors are highlighted, enumerated values are displayed, and the amount of typing goes from full tag names to just a few characters followed by tab to complete.

There are now Visual studio project templates available for creating Nancy projects.

I recently read an article discussing the idea of loyalty, particularly as it applies to millennials – those of the youngest generation currently working. The article was titled “The Truth About Millennials and Job Loyalty”.  I found the article to be a…