Shortly after I gave my presentation Trigger Happy Database Security down in Jacksonville for SQL Saturday #3, I received an email asking how to recover from a bad logon trigger that was blocking access to a SQL Server. The answer is to use the DAC, as I describe here: Read more

I got the email with a Zoomerang survey to vote for the PASS board. All are excellent candidates, but ultimately, I could only vote for 3. My choices look like I'm stealing from Steve Jones, but I'm not. I voted for 3, but the 3rd choice were really hard.… Read more

Speaker: Paul Shearer

Midlands PASS Chapter - December 4, 2008 Meeting

The Midlands PASS chapter will hold our normally scheduled meeting on Thursday, December 4, 2008. Paul Shearer will be giving a presentation entitled "Virtualization Everything" in which he'll cover virtualizing SQL Server for large scale apps using Hyper-V technology.… Read more

One of the first things I tried to do when logon triggers came out with Service Pack 2 of SQL Server 2005 was audit for members of the sysadmin fixed server role logging on to the server. Here's a simple means to build a logon trigger to do just that:  Read more

Illiad has been running a series on his UserFriendly comic strip about veterans. It started on Monday and has continued thus far through today.

UserFriendly - Monday, November 10, 2008

You can read each one in turn by clicking "Next Cartoon" on the pencil bar.

It's not about the current… Read more

I've been asked by a few folks whether or not I'm going to the PASS Summit. The answer is I'm not. I'd love to, and the one I attended I found to be of great value, but basically, it's a work-life balance thing. A couple of weeks ago I took… Read more

 Jason Massie called me out for a new SQL Quiz that was the diabolical idea of Chris Shaw.The gist is to post two mistakes you've made in your database career. I'm normally a very cautious person when it comes to making changes and I tend to be meticulous… Read more

In addition to the reading list I'm still struggling to finish, I've always got other books partially started. Maybe that's why I have so much trouble completing the books on my reading list. Okay, it is the reason. It's one of those inefficient habits I've got to break. But I… Read more

I've written my first tip for MSSQLTips.com:

How to setup and use a SQL Server alias

It's a pretty simple thing to do, but it can be extremely handy in a recovery situation. For our disaster recovery tests, we configure the aliases on the application servers such that their… Read more

Speaker: Brian Kelley

Midlands PASS Chapter - November 6, 2008 Meeting

Sponsored by Red Gate Software

The Midlands PASS chapter will hold our normally scheduled meeting on Thursday, November 6, 2008. Brian Kelley will be presenting Red Gate's new product, SQL Response, and then continuing on with a introductory… Read more

When I came home from work tonight, there waiting on my was my copy of Professional Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Administration from Wrox (link goes to Amazon). I'm not listed as one of the primary authors (so I didn't get my face on the cover), but I did update and… Read more

Auditing blank passwords in SQL Server 2005 and 2008 proves a bit more challenging than in SQL Server 2000. In SQL Server 2000 we could query syslogins and see what the password column contained. If it was NULL, then we knew that if that was a SQL Server login, we… Read more