It's been pretty busy since my last post. Just in one week I had at least 12 hours devoted to PASS activities, and I'll share details of some of that here. To start with, I was able to mark another of my Q1 goals complete as Sanj from PASS HQ… Read more

Yesterday I blogged about how to figure out what database principals corresponded to what server principals. The key is to match up the SIDs between sys.server_principals and sys.database_principals. But I also stated there were 3 cases where the logins had implicit access to a database and therefore we wouldn't… Read more

Question: What would be the best practice to configure Failover Clustering and Database Mirroring?

This question is frequently asked in one of the technical discussion groups I frequent. My reply follows.

I have a customer that wants to combine Failover Clustering with Database Mirroring in which the last one will… Read more

It’s usually nice, sometimes challenging, always interesting.

The other day both Tia and I were working in the “spare” office when Delaney came in to snap a photo.

This isn’t how I always work, but I do tend to do editing up there rather than in the basement… Read more

This past weekend was the Rocky Mountain Tech Trifecta, and I attended and presented as well. Actually I only attended half the day since my wife had planned a dinner party and I had numerous chores to complete during the first half of the day.

The event was held… Read more

Stuart says that as of Feb 20 registration is at 150 with a cap of 200, and plenty of speakers lined up including Joe Celko. The interesting part (and I'm little reluctant to point to this because it mentions me) is to read his honest and open talk about the… Read more

Question: Will the Mirror automatically fail back to the original Principal when it comes back online?

This question doesn't usually come up until someone has experienced an unplanned failover and something that they forgot about has been failing as a result. Hopefully this question will start coming up while planning… Read more

A question on the forum asked how to find all the database mappings for a particular login. If you're on SQL Server 2000 or below, the tables you want to use are syslogins in the master database and sysusers in each database. The key to tying the login to a user… Read more

When the Kindle 2 was first announced, I debated about whether or not to get it. Then I realized I had to same sort of debate with myself over the Kindle, and that ultimately there were a couple of times I regretted not having gotten one. One of those times… Read more

In Brian Kelly's recent blog post, he makes an excellent case outlining why there are few options but to 'Trust' SQL Server Administrators. And then he goes into excellent detail explaining that it may be impossible to completely 'prohibit' disruptive behavior, and that one should establish a robust auditing of… Read more

This is a follow-on post to You Must Trust Someone. My point in that post was to establish that being able to and and actually trusting your account and server administrators is a necessity. I didn't go into the business aspect of that, but basically it boils down to… Read more

There is an active attack in the wild for the newly announced Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader vulnerability. While the attack isn't widespread, there is always the possibility of copycat attacks. One of the recommended suggestions is really easy to do, so I'm posting it here, and that's to… Read more

If you use Data Dude (Visual Studio 2008 Team System Database Edition GDR), you might want to check out Gert Draper’s new website, DBProj.com. Gert used to be the Software Architect and Engineering  Manager of Data Dude, and he has started a new website focused on the product. While… Read more

After some recent talks with security folks and auditors, one of the things I have had a hard time getting across is that you must trust those folks responsible for account and server management when it comes to securing your data. Yes, you can put in a lot of deterrents, but… Read more

How do I ... Determine Database Growth If I Am Not Tracking It?

If your database has grown considerably and you're not sure when or why it happened, you'll be hard pressed to figure out the answer unless you're tracking changes in database size. Luckily, if you are performing regular… Read more

Video editing is a bit of a pain on a Windows PC I definitely have some flexibility with ULead’s Video Studio, but it’s still slow and cumbersome. Even the base iLife ‘07, which we have on the kid’s iMac makes it easier. Granted it’s limited in what it can… Read more

Announced in the past week or so, Microsoft has released an update to Codezone that expands the focus beyond just the developer community to members of Culminis and PASS. For PASS members and prospective PASS Chapters they can elect to host with PASS (preferred, but optional), host at UGSS, or… Read more

As some of you may know, I am writing a new book called High Performance Index Maintenance. As an experiment within the SQL Server community, I have been asking for DBAs to provide feedback on the books contents.

In my first blog about this topic, I asked people to… Read more

I have been tagged by Tom LaRock to write about “what was your first computer and what were some of your favorite games”. 

The first computer I owned was a Texas Instruments 994A purchased in 1981. It was actually my husband's idea, but I ended up being the one who used… Read more

Denver SQL Server User Group:

A “Biking Buddy” Adventure Works hospitality report.  Always have something in common to talk about with a biking buddy that is a palatable drive from your zip code.

Thursday February 19, 2009

Description:

Ever want to bike with someone but would like to have something… Read more