When I talk to other SQL Server professionals, I’m often surprised at how many do not have any involvement in their local SQL Server user group. As best I can tell, the problem is not limited to SQL Server types – many technical pros do not even know that there are user groups in their area, much less participate in…
I’ve seen a good deal of coverage recently that is geared toward those who have recently begun a career as a database professional. Brad McGehee posted this week about some potential topics for a book for new SQL Server developers, and Craig Outcalt is publishing a series of articles on SQLServerCentral.com aimed at new DBAs. Brent Ozar also has a…
Data mining is commonly used to find otherwise undetectable patterns in related sets of data. However, sometimes these patterns provide absolutely useless information. This story on FoxNews.com explains a recent correlation between teens who skip breakfast and those that lose their virginity earlier in life. Interesting information, yes, but what exactly does a parent or other concerned party do with this? Is…
I was tagged by Gail Shaw to post two big mistakes made during my professional career. The only challenge here was to narrow the list down to two 🙂 The first one is very easy. During my early days working with SQL Server, I wore a lot of hats, including that of web developer. One of my first major web projects was…
I’ve read a number of responses from Chris Shaw’s first DBA networking quiz. I missed out on the first one, but I have been tagged by Grant Fritchey for the second round. The Questions for this quiz… What are the largest challenges that you have faced in your career and how did you overcome those? 1) The first one of these, I still…
DBA, database developer, analyst, SQL grunt, or whatever your title may be, there is no question that your role will be evolving in the next few years. I read a couple of posts from Jason Massie about the Death of the DBA (part 1 and part 2) earlier today, in which he predicts a diminishing market for database administrators, and SQL DBAs…
In the past few years, many people – myself included – have expressed a desire to see the quality of the Microsoft certification program improved. Even though there have been some positive changes in the MCP program during the past few years, it still lacks the repute (and frankly, market value) many of us hope for. On that topic, I…
Working with healthcare organizations, I am constantly aware of the restrictions my staff and I must abide by according to HIPAA constraints. It’s not really rocket science; as far as data security goes, HIPAA mandates what logically should already be in place. Any organization that takes data security seriously will already have safeguard on the storage and transmission of data, fully tested…
Last month I got to head out to Orlando and spend a couple of days with Andy Warren and the guys at End to End Training. They have relaunched JumpStartTV.com and I was out there to record some brief training videos on SQL Server SMO programming. Check out the SMO channel here. Also, Brian Knight and Grant Fritchey have both posted recent content on the same site, and I encourage…
I wrote a post a few months back about a healthcare data conversion project that I’ve been working on for the better part of 2 years. My task on this project is to convert data from an old UNIX-based Universe database to a SQL Server-based application; the database we are extracting from is quite old, both in terms of technology…