This weekend, I had the unique opportunity to donate some time to a worthwhile charity organization. Through the efforts of the Dallas-area .NET user group community (and specifically, Toi Wright), Microsoft, BravoTech and a number of other vendors, the first annual We Are Microsoft Charity Challenge was born in a flurry of activity over the last three days. This event…
It seems that I keep inheriting old systems that provide a singular, albeit mission critical, function to their owners. In the majority of these cases, I have encountered numerous small applications that were designed to run in a standalone environment to solve a very narrow problem or set of problems. The person who supports the application – which is very…
After putting it off for six months, I finally took – and passed – 70-431 yesterday. I know, I’m probably one of the last ones on board, but I’m kind of a geek and I don’t want to sit for an exam until I’m really ready. I’ve failed two MS exams and after each failure I was bummed out for…
If you’ve spent much time at all reading Steve Jones’s blog posts and SSC editorials, you quickly glean that he finds working in solitude to be an interesting challenge. I’m sure that others could tell a similar story, but I had not experienced this for myself until recently. An upcoming renovation has forced me out of my permanent office and…
It’s been quite a week at the Gartner Application Development and Integration conference here in Nashville. I’ve never been to a development-focused event that was so abstract and theoretical; in fact, I don’t think I saw a single line of code during the entire conference. My time here started on Sunday afternoon; my flight arrived nearly on time at just…
A few weeks ago I was engaged in a useful discussion about the merits of getting certified on Microsoft SQL Server. A number of people I’ve talked with about the MCDBA certification share my opinion that these tests were too easy and therefore held limited value to one’s career. After all, what does it matter if you have a mess…
Having cut my teeth on SQL Server 2000, I had some (but not a lot) of DTS experience. Recently I found myself presented with a massive ETL project, and found a perfect opportunity to get started with SQL Server Integration Services. With the help of a couple of great books and one magazine (I’ll mention those shortly), I have spent…
One of the highlights of my weekday mornings is reading the editorial by Steve Jones of SQLServerCentral.com. However, this past Tuesday’s newsletter was particularly newsworthy: Steve announced the sale of the SQLServerCentral.com site to Red Gate software, a UK-based manufacturer of SQL Server tools. Though the timing came as a surprise, I have to say that the sale did not. …
For your listening enjoyment, I have compiled a list off essential audio for .NET developers and SQL DBAs. This list is far from comprehensive, but it represents my must-hear list each week. Hanselminutes (http://www.hanselminutes.com) – This is a (mostly) weekly show that focuses on the expertise of Scott Hanselman. The tagline of the show calls Scott a ‘technologist’, which is…
For some reason, today I came across at least a half-dozen blog posts and articles about how to avoid SQL injection attacks. It had been a while since I had read about SQL injections, and an odd thought comes to mind: Why is SQL injection still an issue? This is such an easy problem to get around. The use of…